If you are into gritty crime, then The Friends of Eddie Coyle is for you, a forgotten little treasure of the 70's. It is about an over-the-hill small time gunrunner. Eddie Coyle discovers that he's facing long jail sentence with no appeal. Torn between turning police informer or preserving his loyalty to the Mob, Coyle moves slowly towards his final decision, while unbeknownst to him, the machinations of others in the criminal network are setting an unwitting trap from which poor Coyle cannot escape.
Robert Mitchum, who plays Coyle, gives a wonderfully understated performance full of pathos and gravitas, accentuating the weariness of a two-bit loser looking to check out before it's too late.
British director Peter Yates (who died last year) handles this genre with great panache as he did on two early films Robbery 1967, Bullitt 1968.