Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall have joined Ben Affleck in Boston-set crime thriller/romance** The Town**. The Mad Men actor will play an FBI agent hot on the heels of blue-collar bank robber Doug MacRay (Affleck), who uses Hall's bank clerk as bait to snare his man.
The Town, Affleck's second stint behind the camera after Gone Baby Gone, is based on Chuck Hogan's novel Prince Of Thieves. Hogan has adapted his own book for the screen, aided and abetted by Peter King and with a polish from Affleck, for whom The Town marks a return to home soil.
The Town's producer Graham King has a similarly impressive Boston-based crime pedigree, with his mantlepiece boasting an Oscar for The Departed.
Hall, one of last year's Orange BAFTA Rising Star nominees, has the challenge of swapping her English accent for the New England version, although if her turn as Frost/Nixon's socialite Caroline Cushing is anything to go by, she won't have much trouble.
If she and Affleck can produce anything like the smouldering Clooney/Lopez chemistry of Out Of Sight, and Affleck proves as handy directing himself as he was his brother in Gone Baby Gone, we could be in for a treat. At the very least, we'll get to see the FBI-ed Hamm in more sharp suits.
Filming on The Town is scheduled to start in the Boston suburb of Charlestown in late August.