The Friends of Eddie Coyle (15.)
Directed by Peter Yates. 1973
Starring Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Steven Keats, Richard Jordan, Alex Roccos and Joe Santos. 102 mins. Released by Eureka! As part of their Masters of Cinema series.
Eddie Coyle's friends aren't friends so much as faces, people that were in that thing you saw but can't quite put a name to. That's Rockford's old buddy; that's the one got shot in the eye in The Godfather. They're faces not names, small time. Even the only big name involved, Mitchum, looks to be down on his luck, in need of a good night's sleep, (or a good anything really) and way farther down the road then the 51 years he professes to. The Friends of Eddie Coyle is determinedly small time, an exquisite prod in the pool of backroom, intermediary criminality and a fine study of the ethics and mechanics of grassing.
Coyle (Mitchum) is a stand up guy who supplies guns to a slick, very professional gang of bank robbers headed up by Roccos and Santos. He's also facing a prison sentence for being caught driving a hijacked lorry and refusing to roll over on the people that organised it. He is being courted by a fed Foley (Jordan) who is trying to get him to start feeding him information in return for maybe doing something about his sentence. What Coyle doesn't know is that another one of his friends also has Foley's ear.
The early seventies was a period of American cinema not short on great crime dramas but this adaptation of the debut novel by George V. Higgins is as good as any of them, but not quite like any of them. It's a thriller without thrills. There's no real action to speak of, and only a smidgen of tension, but it pulls you in, sucks you inextricable into its down-at-heel world. The cast is magnificent. Mitchum looks like he has just been rolled off a park bench that morning, and he underplays his role touchingly. Coyle is a supporting role that has stumbled into centre stage and Mitchum plays him with a recognition that he's rarely the most important person in any scene. The younger performers, Jordan and Keats (as the gun runner Jackie Brown), are more dynamic presences than that star; their characters probably think that they are the lead.
The film is set in and around Boston and sense of place is overwhelming. Hollywood generally prefers its tours around the underbelly of America to be a little more ostentatious, for the low lives to put on a bit of a show for the tourists, but this really is dull, suburban, loserville America, a nowhere land of supermarket car parks, bowling alleys and dingy bars. Everything is agreeably grubby; you can almost feel the dirt and the grime and slime.
The film was beautifully put together by Brit Peter Yates (an up and down talent who zig zagged his way through Bullit, Krull, The Dresser and The Deep.) You can tell that great care has been put into filming these dive bars and diners, but also care in ensuring it doesn't show, not to make it too staged Nighthawks at the Diner. (Contrast this with the only other Higgins movie adaptation, Killing Them Softly, which the dinginess is cacophonous and every rag and cigarette end has to be placed just so.)
It may be one of the most unglamorous, unromanticised crime movies ever. This is a merciless, joyless world of random outcomes and callous choices. And this most unglamorous and unromanticised of crime movies arguably demostrates more clearly than most why crime is so glamorous and romanticised; even here, there is something enticing and exclusive about this world. The quality of life of the people here is wretched. Even among the ones who have made it to the top of the tree, they are wracked with uncertainty, anxiety and long, unsocial hours. They all feel hard done by but they all love it. Even as they're being carted off to prison (or worse) you can sense their pride at having not been a regular guy, of being a band apart.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a stone cold classic, there's nothing quite like it. It's tender, but brutal. What ultimately makes it so remarkable is its sense of poignant indifference: it's a casual tragedy, heartbreaking but at the same time no big deal.
Extras.
An appreciation of the film by Glenn Kenny.
An 80 minute career spanning interview with Peter Yates on the stage at the NFT.
A 44 Page booklet.
Directed by Peter Yates. 1973
Starring Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Steven Keats, Richard Jordan, Alex Roccos and Joe Santos. 102 mins. Released by Eureka! As part of their Masters of Cinema series.
Eddie Coyle's friends aren't friends so much as faces, people that were in that thing you saw but can't quite put a name to. That's Rockford's old buddy; that's the one got shot in the eye in The Godfather. They're faces not names, small time. Even the only big name involved, Mitchum, looks to be down on his luck, in need of a good night's sleep, (or a good anything really) and way farther down the road then the 51 years he professes to. The Friends of Eddie Coyle is determinedly small time, an exquisite prod in the pool of backroom, intermediary criminality and a fine study of the ethics and mechanics of grassing.
Coyle (Mitchum) is a stand up guy who supplies guns to a slick, very professional gang of bank robbers headed up by Roccos and Santos. He's also facing a prison sentence for being caught driving a hijacked lorry and refusing to roll over on the people that organised it. He is being courted by a fed Foley (Jordan) who is trying to get him to start feeding him information in return for maybe doing something about his sentence. What Coyle doesn't know is that another one of his friends also has Foley's ear.
The early seventies was a period of American cinema not short on great crime dramas but this adaptation of the debut novel by George V. Higgins is as good as any of them, but not quite like any of them. It's a thriller without thrills. There's no real action to speak of, and only a smidgen of tension, but it pulls you in, sucks you inextricable into its down-at-heel world. The cast is magnificent. Mitchum looks like he has just been rolled off a park bench that morning, and he underplays his role touchingly. Coyle is a supporting role that has stumbled into centre stage and Mitchum plays him with a recognition that he's rarely the most important person in any scene. The younger performers, Jordan and Keats (as the gun runner Jackie Brown), are more dynamic presences than that star; their characters probably think that they are the lead.
The film is set in and around Boston and sense of place is overwhelming. Hollywood generally prefers its tours around the underbelly of America to be a little more ostentatious, for the low lives to put on a bit of a show for the tourists, but this really is dull, suburban, loserville America, a nowhere land of supermarket car parks, bowling alleys and dingy bars. Everything is agreeably grubby; you can almost feel the dirt and the grime and slime.
The film was beautifully put together by Brit Peter Yates (an up and down talent who zig zagged his way through Bullit, Krull, The Dresser and The Deep.) You can tell that great care has been put into filming these dive bars and diners, but also care in ensuring it doesn't show, not to make it too staged Nighthawks at the Diner. (Contrast this with the only other Higgins movie adaptation, Killing Them Softly, which the dinginess is cacophonous and every rag and cigarette end has to be placed just so.)
It may be one of the most unglamorous, unromanticised crime movies ever. This is a merciless, joyless world of random outcomes and callous choices. And this most unglamorous and unromanticised of crime movies arguably demostrates more clearly than most why crime is so glamorous and romanticised; even here, there is something enticing and exclusive about this world. The quality of life of the people here is wretched. Even among the ones who have made it to the top of the tree, they are wracked with uncertainty, anxiety and long, unsocial hours. They all feel hard done by but they all love it. Even as they're being carted off to prison (or worse) you can sense their pride at having not been a regular guy, of being a band apart.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a stone cold classic, there's nothing quite like it. It's tender, but brutal. What ultimately makes it so remarkable is its sense of poignant indifference: it's a casual tragedy, heartbreaking but at the same time no big deal.
Extras.
An appreciation of the film by Glenn Kenny.
An 80 minute career spanning interview with Peter Yates on the stage at the NFT.
A 44 Page booklet.
