(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” is a crime drama that takes place in and around Boston. Robert Mitchum is Eddie Coyle, a small-time member of an Irish gang who is about to be sentenced for a truck hijacking that he did for another gangster named Dillon who is played by Peter Boyle. Because Eddie doesn’t want to do anymore time he agrees to act as an informant to ATF agent Dave Foley. He informs on the gun runner Jackie Brown who has been providing Eddie with pistols for use by a bank robbing gang being run by Eddie’s friend Jimmy Scalise.
At the same time, we discover that Eddie’s associate Dillon is also providing information to Foley too. Eventually Dillon provides information on Scalise’s operation and the gang gets busted. When both Jackie Brown and Scalise both get taken down by ATF the head of the gang decides that Eddie is responsible for the leaks and sends his hitman to kill Eddie. And ironically the hitman is Dillon.
The movie consists of the various crimes, the gun-running and the bank robberies along with Eddie’s and Dillon’s meetings with Dave Foley. The movie’s strengths are the dialog and the portrayal of these characters. Listening to them justify the various and contradictory actions they take rings true. Even Eddie’s relationship with his wife and family demonstrates what a hopeless mess his life is. And the ending where Dillon takes Eddie to a Bruins hockey game and gets him black out drunk before executing him in a car ride into the suburbs is completely believable and emblematic of the faithless fraternity that these men inhabit.
Living in New England I asked a friend of mine what he thought about the somewhat recent Boston mob movie, “The Departed.” He said that the legitimate quintessential New England mob movie was the “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.” And I agree with him completely. This movie feels about right as a representation of Boston corruption. Whether it’s gangsters or crooked politicians this is what that world looks and feels like. It’s petty and disloyal and penny-ante and very, very local. There’s nothing grandiose and nothing heroic. It’s gritty and believable.
If you like crime movies that reek of small-timer sweat, this is it.