The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Based on the best-selling novel by George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle chronicles the last days of a weary Boston-based weapons dealer. Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) doesn't want to serve a life sentence in prison, so he becomes an informant for both the police and the treasury department. ...more

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a beautifully sad little film that packs a tremendous punch. A gangster film on the surface, it's really a character study, an examination of a little man with little dreams, a guy just trying to keep his head above water when all the bigger guys are making waves that threaten to engulf him. That the man in question is a small-time hood and the bigger guys are amoral policemen and immoral gangsters means his efforts are futile -- and imbues his story with a ...more