THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (82)

Directed by: Peter Yates (1973)

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats

The Pitch: An ageing hoodlum deals in guns for a gang of bank robbers, but is set up by a manipulative cop.

Theo Sez: Key factor here is perhaps that the scriptwriter (Paul Monash) is also the producer ; no other way could such a bleak, low-key project emerge unscathed through the 'creative process'. Not that it's especially script-driven, or at least plot-driven - action at a minimum, much of it simply an accretion of dialogue scenes where people negotiate, hedge around each other or try to make a deal (it's like the Rohmer of crime movies) ; common refrain is a hierarchy of power, one person in the dialogue able to dominate the other - Mitchum (superb) in thrall to the bigger fish but showing his teeth when he threatens the young gun-seller, who in turn bullies his associates. The film builds a world, the mix of (mostly) unknown faces and Yates' clean, deliberate style striking an almost documentary note - this is how a bank manager tells his staff to stay calm during a robbery ; this is how you protect yourself during a pickup ; this is how people talk, noncommittally, about having their hands broken ("hurt like a bastard") after screwing up a deal - but it also approaches the sense of smothered humanity you find in 70s conspiracy thrillers like THE PARALLAX VIEW or ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES, only without the explicit politics : everyone seems to be moving by remote control, inexorably, as if manipulated by some higher power (maybe 'The Man', the unseen authority who decides questions of life and death, or maybe just their own transience and small-time ambitions). Settings are bars, parking lots, rundown corners of town, but the drama has the ritualised, implacable quality of Greek tragedy - no-one's allowed to rise up or assert themselves, everyone has their use (and those willing to use them) ; one might call it fatalistic, except these characters can't afford fatalism - they're too busy trying to strike it rich or stay out of jail. Plot dribbles away, the ending a real shock, Mitchum's world-weary mien still a human being rather than iconic shorthand ; stark 70s look evokes small-scale corruption and the daily grind ; quite simply, they don't make them like this anymore.