The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973) Run Time 1H 42M

Greetings gentle readers, welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today I have a neo-noir crime drama for you, more Mitchum goodness: The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Reviews:

Ebert says:

The movie is as simple as that. It’s not a high-strung gangster film, it doesn’t have a lot of overt excitement in it, and it doesn’t go in for much violence. He gives us a man, invites our sympathy for him, and then watches almost sadly as his time runs out. And “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” works so well because Eddie is played by Robert Mitchum, and Mitchum has perhaps never been better.

He has always been one of our best screen actors: sardonic, masculine, quick-witted, but slow to reveal himself. He has never been in an absolutely great film; he doesn’t have masterpieces behind him like Brando or Cary Grant. More than half his films have been conventional action melodramas, and it is a rare summer without at least one movie in which Mitchum wears a sombrero and lights bombs with his cigar. But give him a character and the room to develop it, and what he does is wonderful. Eddie Coyle is made for him: a weary middle-aged man, but tough and proud; a man who has been hurt too often in life not to respect pain; a man who will take chances to protect his own territory.

Criterion says:

Politeness and bonhomie are strictly provisional, and everybody knows it, which is what gives this film its terrible sadness. In the miserable economy of power in Boston’s rumpled gray underworld, Eddie and his “friends” are all expendable, and the ones left standing play every side against the middle, their white-knuckle terror carefully concealed under several layers of nonchalance and resignation. There’s not a punch thrown, and only two fatal shots are fired, but this seemingly artless film leaves a deeper impression of dog-eat-dog brutality than many of the blood-soaked extravaganzas that preceded it and have come in its wake.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is, in many ways, an inside job. Meaning that there’s not a minute spent orienting the viewer. The tale of a low-level mobster who gives up one of his contacts in a failed effort to bargain his way out of a New Hampshire prison stint is imparted to us a little bit at a time, through a series of seemingly affable but quietly desperate sit-downs between criminals and cops, or other criminals, in crummy coffee shops, underpopulated bars, and public spaces that give new meaning to the word ordinary. The filmmakers never do anything in the way of rhetorical underlining.

RyanzRetroReviewz says:

So with all said and done, the friends of Eddie Coyle is a truly amazing piece of retro cinema. The performance by Robert Mitchum is just perfect as the middle aged low level gun running Boston criminal who makes all the wrong decisions until he’s at the end of his rope. His massive presence and calm, cool demeanor along with his Boston street wise lingo defines that of a man’s man. With all the supporting cast playing their part perfectly as the men of Boston’s shady underworld, with one Alex Rocco, who plays Jimmy Scalise (that’s Moe Green of “The Godfather” to you), having once been a hang around member of Boston’s famed Winter Hill gang, contributing the most by doubling up as technical advisor in certain aspects of the movie, and even introducing Mitchum to the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, Howie Winter, himself. The story amazingly takes you through the viewpoint of all these different characters in such a cool and calm pace, allowing the audience not to get too confused, with the old Boston wise guy dialogue being absolute gold. The theme by the end of it being the plain and simple truth that you can’t trust anybody in the criminal world. We also get to see a very evident metaphor in one of the ending scenes just before Eddie is killed while they’re at the Boston Gardens, with Eddie now being past the point of his prime while the young star #4 Bobby Orr is on his way up to the top. The cinematography by Victor J. Kemper is absolutely beautiful, capturing all the blending fall colors in all the quiet morning peaceful neighborhoods around Boston, Massachusetts in a real “Zen” like style. And the music score by Dave Grusin is a straight up funky 1970s theme, common in this era of movies. All of this is brilliantly wrapped up together by the great Peter Yates, leaving such a solid influence from this movie that it’s inspired multiple different modern Boston criminal theme movies; the bank robbery plotline and scenes in this movie were a clear influence on the movie “The Town” (2010) staring Ben Affleck, and the entire multiple character driven plotline and ending theme of everybody being a rat was without a doubt a huge influence on Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” (2006). One final side note; if you are interested in another Irish-American crime style movie based on another novel by George V. Higgins, look up “Killing Them Softly” (2012) staring Brad Pitt (based on his novel “Coogan’s Trade”).

My take:

This is a great film, with spare imagery and a compact story-line. It’s set during the fall and there is lot’s of grey, grainy light to accent the grim and grimy life of the protagonist. Mitchum is perfect as the aging low-level criminal hustler always looking for an angle and desperate to escape his past sins. There is minimal violence, unlike modern crime movies where everyone is packing a pistol and uses it willy-nilly, but the viewer is still left with a strong sense of the fear that governs the lives of Mitchum’s character and his “friends”.

Directed by: Peter Yates

Screenplay by: Paul Monash

Notable actors: Robert Mitchum, Peter Doyle

Plot (Spoilers!):

Eddie Coyle (Mitchum) has problems. He is a small time criminal facing years of jailtime and his only way out is to sell out his friends to the cops. He is a gun-runner and decides that he has to rat out his supplier. Dave Foley is an ATF agent that Coyle is working with to try and clear his name. Coyle offers him Jackie, his supplier, as a trade. Unbeknownst to Coyle, Foley is also in contact with Dillon (Boyle), a bartender at a spot Coyle frequents who is also connected to the Mob.

Meanwhile, the bank robbing crew that Coyle has been supplying guns to has gone on a spree. They successfully rob one bank, then another. The second one ends in a murder, though, and now the law is really hot to get it’s hands on them.

Coyle conducts some business with Jackie, then calls Foley and let’s him know that Jackie is about to make a big move by selling some machine guns to a hippie couple. The cops ambush Jackie and are successful at bringing him in. Jackie realizes that Coyle has set him up. But Coyle’s treachery isn’t enough to get the law off of his back, Foley tells him he needs more information.

Meanwhile, the bank crew’s luck has finally come to an end. Foley and his agents ambush them and they are arrested. Coyle decides that he will sell out the crew and tells Foley so but Foley shrugs and shows him the newspaper: the bank crew has been busted. Coyle is out of options and knows it.

But it gets worse for him. The Mob has decided that it was Coyle that ratted out the bank crew and they want him dead. Dillon is picked to do the job. He invites Coyle to a hockey game accompanied by his “wife’s nephew” who is in actuality another gangster. After the game, Coyle becomes very drunk and passes out in the front seat of the car. Dillon and his accomplice drive him to an out of the way parking lot and Coyle is shot in the head.

Dillon and Foley meet up and we learn that it was Dillon who sold out the bank crew. Foley suspects that Dillon knows what happened to Coyle but apparently doesn’t care that much. Foley hands Dillon some money and the two part ways.