Title: The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Release Date: June 26, 1973
Director: Peter Yates
Production Company: Paramount Pictures
Summary/Review:
Long before The Departed and several adaptations of Denis Lehane novels made the Boston Crime Movie a cliche, there was The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Unlike most of the movies that I watched for this classic movie project this is not one that’s considered one of the great movies of all time, but I put it on my list because it’s considered one of the great Boston movies of all time. Having watched it, I think it deserves much wider recognition because it is a powerful, well-acted, well-paced, and well-scripted film.
Unlike more recent Boston Crime Movies, The Friends of Eddie Coyle emphasizes the mundanity of life in the mob. Doing mob work is work and for Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) it is – literally and figuratively – a dead end job. Sorry for the spoiler, but it’s clear from the beginning that Eddie is not much longer for this world, although you do pull for him to some how get out his situation.
Eddie’s job is to get guns for a gang of bank robbers who need fresh weapons for each heist. He buys them from gun runner Jackie Brown (Steven Keats). Coyle is also facing a prison sentence for getting caught in New Hampshire with a truck full of stolen liquor and refusing to squeal on who he was working for, the bartender/mob boss Dillon (Peter Boyle). He asks ATF agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) for help with a recommendation to the judge, but Foley expects him to turn informer in return.
At first the movie seems disjointed, with scenes of Eddie, Jackie, Dillon, and Dave going about their business intercut with bank robberies. But it all comes together brilliantly in the end. As I noted above, this movie emphasizes the mundane, everyday aspects of organized crime. There’s no glamour here, and there’s actually only a handful of scenes of violence. But the movie does offer terrific acting, especially Mitchum, who pretty much lives in his role as Eddie.
For Boston lovers, there are a lot of great location shots including familiar spots like City Hall Plaza and the old Boston Garden, where Eddie waxes poetically over Bobby Orr in the most Boston scene ever caught on film. There are also scenes shot in a no longer extant Back Bay bar that is a platonic ideal of the men’s bars that no longer exist. And although I can’t confirm, I’m almost certain there’s a scene in the late, lamented Doyle’s Cafe. Much of the film is set in the suburbs at places like Houghton’s Pond and shopping centers with parking lots filled with big cars and flashy signs.
Bostonian or not, this is a film worth watching.
Rating: ****1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 