The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) on Netflix
Eddie Coyle is a fifty-one-year-old Boston gunrunner facing five years in prison. He supplies guns to a bank robbery crew and hopes Dave Foley, an ATF agent, will keep him out.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.4/1013,967 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Eddie Coyle is a small-time career criminal in Boston who is waiting to be sentenced after his latest conviction and expects up to five years behind bars. At fifty-one, he has a wife and children to provide for and does not think he can face another term inside. He keeps up his connections, buying guns for Jimmy Scalise and Artie Van, who rob banks with a crew. He also weighs giving information to Dave Foley, an ATF agent, in the hope of staying out of prison. Eddie has picked up bits of knowledge about many criminal operations, but he has crossed the wrong people before, so he has to be careful about whose name he offers.
Cast
- Marvin Lichtermanas Vernon
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Columnist Howie Carr argued that Peter Boyle's character Dillon is a thinly veiled version of real gangster Whitey Bulger, and that Eddie Coyle's murder mirrors the real killing of Bulger associate William "Billy" O'Brien, though author George V. Higgins denied basing Dillon directly on Bulger.- Robert Mitchum wanted to meet real Boston gangsters for research and reportedly hoped to meet Whitey Bulger himself, but was warned off; instead cast member Alex Rocco, a former hanger-on of the real Winter Hill Gang, introduced Mitchum to gang leader Howie Winter.
