Director: Peter Yates
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Alex Rocco

A long way back, I reviewed a movie called East L.A. Warriors. The movie wasn't very good, so much so that if I had a ratings system on this website, I would have given it a rating as close to my lowest possible rating I could give. All the same, the movie did make me think about gang culture in American cities, specifically gangs with youths as their members. What could drive a youth to enter such a dangerous life, I wondered. It wasn't an easy question for me to answer. My theories ranged from the poverty these gang members were born and raised in to a feeling of being in some sector of society where you are accepted and valued. But recently, I thought of a similar question to the one the aforementioned movie, and that question was, "What can drive people to get associated with a more complex kind of gang?" Specifically, I am talking about the Mafia, the Mob, the criminal underworld, or whatever you want to call it. Thinking about it, this similar question was just as hard to answer as the first question I talked about. I guess in some ways the answer is similar to why youths join those street gangs. It seems to me that the people that join organized crime are in a down and out situation, either by birth or circumstances. In desperation, they probably agree to do some shady things under the guidence of a middleman in their neighborhood in order to get some cash. Once that is done, they are down a slippery slope that doesn't seem to have any easy way out. The middleman will probably get them to soon do more crimes, increasing the severity of the crime with every new assignment.

Eventually - that is, if while doing those aforementioned crimes they don't end up being arrested or killed - they will rise in rank and get even more power. However, the story of the sword of Damocles is very apt for this situation, or Yertle The Turtle for that matter. Being on top of the food chain, they become a bigger target not just for law enforcement, but from rival gangs. Not to mention there is always the possibility of someone below in the chain to get irked with the high-ranked criminal and deciding that he needs to be taken out of the picture so that the peeved low-ranker can take the other's place. So I think that for a lot of powerful people in the underground, they must quite often think, "How on earth did I get into this position?" It's quite possible that they might think from time to time about getting out of the business altogether. But how? Obviously, making an official gesture of retirement won't sit well with a lot of people either among their cronies or even rival criminals - they might think that the retiree might eventually tip off law enforcement or a rival group of criminals, so the prospect of being a target is still there. Well, some people might think, why not just completely surrender to law enforcement with the assurance that they'll get some sort of witness protection? From what I've learned over the years, it isn't that easy. Witness protection isn't very plentiful in the world of law enforcement - more often that not, the criminal that offers to fess up will just be offered a reduced prison sentence. And if you know anything about prisons, you'll know they aren't very safe places to be, especially if you have been branded a squealer.

So it seems that for just about everybody in the big depths of the criminal underworld, you are in for life, whether you die of natural causes or somebody causes you to die an unnatural death. I admit that I have several times in my lifetime thought about myself being stuck in the criminal underworld and what I could do to find an exit out. The only possible option I have been able to think about concerning what I would do would be to simply pack up and run away to some far corner of the world. But the various gangs seem to have that possibility covered to, especially in this high-tech age of ours when it's easier in many ways to track down someone. So then what to do? When I heard about the movie The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, you may wonder why its plot of an individual in the criminal underworld who is stuck between a rock and a hard place really interested me. And yes, I do know that the movie does have somewhat of a cult following, but since it doesn't appear that it's well known among the general public - and it took forever for it to be released on home video - I consider it an unknown movie on those grounds. The movie concerns a fellow named, what else, Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum, That Championship Season). Around the city of Boston, Coyle works with the local criminal underground as a kind of middleman providing firearms to fellow criminals, and is currently aiding his associates with various robberies. Although he's managed to stay out of being behind bars, he is in danger of that happening. Thanks to participating in a truck hijacking gone bad that was arranged by a shady associate named Dillon (Peter Boyle, Joe), Coyle is facing some serious prison time. However, a federal agent by the name of Dave Foley - no, not The Kids In The Hall guy, but played by Richard Jordan (The Mean Season) - offers Coyle a deal that he can't seem to refuse. Foley instructs Coyle to keep doing his illegal business, so that Coyle can eventually testify not only against all of his crew, but other criminals along the way. This way, Coyle will be assured a lighter prison sentence after going to trial. But it isn't going to be easy for Coyle, because not only does he have to keep his association with Foley a secret, he doesn't know that Foley is keeping his own set of secrets for his own purposes.

At one point in The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, a character states, "Life's hard, but it's harder when you're stupid." While that might not be the case for every individual on the planet, we see that in the criminal underground, every type of criminal has to constantly be on his or her toes if they don't want to be arrested or killed. For starters, the world that the particular criminals of this movie live in is not a cushy world at all. These criminals are not rich. They don't have fancy meeting places to go to, just places like parking lots and greasy spoon diners. When they meet up, they have to constantly be on their guard with both their words and actions. One fellow gunrunner (Steven Keats, Eternity) has clearly been in the business so long that he knows the exact way to do his transactions; he knows what to do to protect himself from possible harm during a solo night transaction, and later he's willing to wait for hours to make sure another transaction will go perfectly. But even we see that knowledge isn't enough - you need dumb luck at times too, and you know that's not always available. Also, these criminals may keep saying that have their own code to maintain order among themselves, but in the end, we see several times that there is no honor among thieves. It's interesting not only to see how long they are able to be trustworthy amongst themselves, but their little quirks as well. When the criminals meet up, they don't immediately get to business - they exchange a few words first about trivial stuff like cars. Also, they frequently like to allude rather than to get straight to the point, maybe as a way to give them some protection against possible woes later. It's a world where every man is for himself, just like how life is often what you and I find at times.

It's also a world where things are sometimes wrapped up not all that smoothly, and people we hope will succeed by the end may not accomplish that goal. This is definitely a cinematic world that I could accept completely. Director Peter Yates (Year Of The Comet) more often than not depicts this world in an interesting style, that being when the central characters are in the foreground and engaging our attention, we usually don't really sense anything happening around them. This is their world after all - they don't belong in our more civilized (hopefully) world. It's not a cheery world - the events take place in the autumn, and the sky is dark and the air is chilly. The world seems almost totally stuck in the suburbs and strip-mall parts around Boston, not giving them much opportunity to get into the much flashier heart of Beantown. Things generally go at a much slower pace than usual; when a car in a parking lot backs up into a parking space, we see it move slowly and with absolutely no cuts to speed things up. While The Friends Of Eddie Coyle may move slower compared to modern movies, that doesn't mean it's dull. The first of two bank robberies in the movie is leisurely paced step by step, but there is excitement in the air because you can feel that something - anything - could easily go wrong. When things in the movie do go wrong, the violence that happens is extremely swift, brutal, and without the feeling of choreography. Even when things are proceeding more to plan, there is a real grittiness in the air that makes what we are seeing real in our eyes.

The characters in The Friends Of Eddie Coyle feel right at home in this world, not just for the reasons I mentioned earlier. None of them could be considered "good" or likeable enough to root for. Foley may technically work for the law, but we see that he's ultimately out for himself. Dillon manages to manipulate Coyle without Coyle seeing that he's being used. As for Coyle himself, it is hard to get much sympathy for the man. He uses the "n" word in his speeches, he got into his mess without apparently thinking of his wife and children first, and oddly he doesn't seem that much concerned about himself, even with the fact that he's facing years in prison. For that matter, the ones around him, his supposed "friends" seem a bit clueless he's facing hard time until he reminds them of that fact. Coyle is essentially a nobody, which may explain why you may be surprised that Coyle only makes sporadic appearances in the movie instead of being up front and center through the narrative. (Maybe that's why the movie is called The Friends Of Eddie Coyle instead of Eddie Coyle And His Friends.) But it's worth sitting through the long stretches between his appearances because not only because of the aforementioned merit of the movie, but the performance Robert Mitchum gives in the role. He gives Coyle a weary resignation, but one that makes you interested in knowing what made Coyle that way in the first place. But while Mitchum may be portraying Coyle as being fatigued by being worn down too much, he convincingly shows that Coyle still has some skill, like how he manages to convince Keats' character to make a deal with him without showing his desperation or raising his voice. It's a great performance, one that compliments the supporting cast who rise above any shortcomings the writing of their characters may have. (Peter Boyle's character probably should have been more involved in the plot, for one thing; he seems almost unnecessary at times.) Viewers with a taste for downbeat (yet compelling) 1970s dramas will find a lot to like about The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, and they'll probably afterwards want to share it with their friends... if they trust them enough.

(Posted July 21, 2026)