I saw this years ago and didn't remember much of it, but had a chance to catch it recently in a nicely restored print on American Movie Classics. Being an older and more intelligent viewer now, I can appreciate its quality. This is a wonderfully minimalist picture of life among the lower levels, indeed the "underbelly", of the criminal world, a world of desperation, squalid deals, and betrayal. The effectiveness of the understated script can doubtless be attributed to the legendary George V. Higgins. Fine performances all around, and the Boston setting is fun for this Boston boy. It's a counterpart, in a way, to the roughly contemporaneous "The Brinks Job", which was also set and filmed in Boston, but without the leavening - and unrealistic - humor of that movie.
Review of The Friends of Eddie Coyle
