The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

the audience applauded

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Boston criminal Eddie 'Fingers' Coyle (Robert Mitchum) is in the mire, the cops have him bang to rights and he's facing a long stretch in the big house. However, if he turns informant he will keep out of poky... For far too long this film had been stuck hidden away in pirate hell, thankfully it finally saw the light of day and can be seen for all its glory. Peter Yates directs and Paul Monash adapts the screenplay from the George V. Higgins novel. Supporting Mitchum are Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats and Alex Rocco. Music is by Dave Grusin and cinematography by Victor J. Kemper.It's a film noir lovers picture, a throw back to the halcyon days of the first wave of noir back in the 1940s. So who better than a battered pug faced Mitchum to front up the story? Pic is perpetually downbeat, with the air of despondency hanging over our protagonist like the grim reaper. The underworld painted by Yates and his team is smartly stripped down to basics, it's a world that is after all, always moving in secretive circles. There's no frilly glamour here, there's crime and consequences, realistic street operations, and brilliantly there's believable characterisations. With dialogue dominating the narrative, it's not one for the action junkie - though the set-pieces are superbly staged by Yates, this is a neo-noir of high respect to previous blood lines. And it boasts a quite brilliant turn from Mitchum whilst not copping out at the finale. Noir heads rejoice! 9/10

After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster (Robert Mitchum) decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.While preparing for his role, Mitchum wanted to meet Whitey Bulger and was warned against it by Higgins. Cast member Alex Rocco, a Somerville native, instead introduced Mitchum to Howie Winter of the Winter Hill Gang. That was probably the next best thing! This film is great and is one of those rare stories of the criminal underworld that succeeds fully. Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann have done the genre justice, but this film -- done by Peter Yates -- did it first. I am quite surprised this is not a better-known picture.

Hard to write a logline for this: Tired criminal betrays his fellow workers, and is betrayed back. To death.First up - Mitchum is the greatest. Woo! Nobody does it better. Second, '70s US urban grit is the greatest film atmosphere.The story wanders around, like the best film noir, and the characters and the corruption are so compelling you can't help following.Mitchum has a loving relationship with a plain old Irish girl, Sheila - pity they didn't drill into that. This is really all about the acting, and there are some great actors on display, but hardly any women. So it's not complete, but well worth a view.

The events depicted in this movie seem to unfold so naturally that the experience of watching it is like being an unseen observer amongst a group of people associated with the Boston underground. Maybe this is why it becomes so immersive and seems so realistic. The whole movie is dialogue-driven and features a series of conversations from which it quickly becomes apparent that everyone involved is simply struggling for survival in a dangerous line of work where no-one can be trusted and the consequences of failure can be extreme. The atmosphere is unrelentingly grim and there's no-one involved who could be regarded as either heroic or glamorous.Eddie "Fingers" Coyle (Robert Mitchum) is a small time hood who's facing the prospect of a prison sentence after having been caught driving a truck of illegal liquor for his best friend Dillon (Peter Boyle). As a lifetime criminal on the wrong side of fifty, he can see time running out and is desperate to avoid another term in prison because, at his age, he doesn't think he'll be able to survive the experience. During his time out on bail, he continues his work as a middle-man buying guns from an arrogant young dealer called Jackie Brown (Steven Keats) and selling them on to Jimmy Scalise (Alex Ricco) who's the leader of a gang of bank robbers.The only way open to Eddie to avoid (or at least get a reduction in) his impending sentence, is to become an informer for treasury agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) and so, when the opportunity arises, he gives Foley the details of one of Jackie Brown's deals to sell some machine guns to a couple of hippies. After Foley arrests Brown, he turns the screw on Eddie by saying that the judge in his case will need more before he'll consider making any concessions on his sentence. The only other useful information that Eddie's got to trade is the identities of Scalise's gang but when he tells Foley what he knows, it's of no value because the treasury agent has already been given that information by another of his informers (Dillon). With no cards left to play, the prospects for Eddie look bleak as he continues to try to negotiate his way out of the fix that he's in.In a marvellous performance, Robert Mitchum conveys the dignity and desperation of his character who's consumed with fear and yet still tries to operate within the criminal code he respects. His long career in crime has left him mentally and physically exhausted and all his efforts to get out of his current predicament feel increasingly futile. Mitchum's tired-looking demeanour exemplifies the sense of hopelessness that Eddie feels in a way that seems incredibly natural and ultimately makes him a surprisingly sympathetic character. The rest of the cast also turn in consistently strong performances in this memorable crime drama which is gritty, downbeat and full of tension.