“This life’s HARD man, but it’s HARDER if you’re stupid!” – Jackie Brown
As you know by now, here at Furious Cinema, we love the crime genre and all the subgenres within it. From tales of ruthless revenge to powerful police procedurals to highly charged heist pictures. One of our top favorite crime films that deals with “ratting people out” is The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) which stars Robert Mitchum (The Night of The Hunter) as the titular character.
Eddie aka “Fingers” is a middle aged, low level gun runner who has been picked up by the feds after a truck hijacking gone wrong. Coyle is facing a long stretch in the joint, his only chance left is Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) an ATF agent who gives him the choice of turning informant. Coyle sets out to give Foley the inside information on his criminal cohorts but soon finds himself sinking in deeper than he ever expected. The movie was filmed on location around Boston, MA. an area that has since gone on to be the host for many modern crime film hits such as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and Ben Affleck’s The Town. The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the godfather of them all and remains one of the very best films of it’s kind. It does a superb job bringing a realistic, unsentimental edge to the story being told.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle was directed by Peter Yates (Mother, Jugs and Speed) who made several excellent crime genre films in the 60s and 70s including Bullitt (1968) and The Hot Rock (1972). The poster above features the line up of Eddie’s underworld friends with him at the center looking rather introspective and grim. It’s grade A 70s crime cinema cool!
