Entire plot summary for The Friends of Eddie Coyle is written in gangster vernacular:
Eddie Coyle is a low-level career criminal and defacto member of Boston's Irish Mob, clinging to the lower rungs of a blue collar life in Quincy, Massachusetts. Still savvy and evidently trusted, he's nonetheless been ground down to supplying disposable pistols to the bank heist gang led by Jimmy Scalise. He plays hardball with a cocky yet still fledgling gunrunner named Jackie Brown to get them.Coyle has been wanted for several years on a rumrunning charge in New Hampshire on a job set up by his friend Dillon, a barkeep at the dive Coyle and other low level local hoodlums frequent. Dillon is also a paid informant for agent Dave Foley of the Boston Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Later, Coyle decides to go to Foley and give up Brown in exchange for getting his sentence cleared.
Scalise's gang robs another bank. This time, the heist botched by a fatal shooting. They know they have at most one more payday before they have to quit.
Brown delivers a rush-job shipment of pistols to Coyle, casually dropping that he has a rendezvous set up later that afternoon in Sharon to deliver some M16s. He shows up at the train station car park and cases it out. As always, he's wary of the risks in front of him but not yet wise enough to cover his back. He gets pinched when an ATF stake-out closes in. Furious, he immediately knows who dropped the dime on him, and vows revenge.
Coyle hooks up with Foley to hear the good news on the Fed's meeting with the prosecutor in New Hampshire. Instead he's told the Brown tip was not enough, "Uncle" - Uncle Sam - needs more. Eddie's repulsed. He'd kept his mouth shut and did time covering for "the Man" behind it all before, even stood and took it when he had all his fingers on one hand broken for a small mess-up in a gun deal. Being a puke once was one thing, becoming a serial rat is too much. He refuses to play ball a second time.
Following their pattern, the Scalise gang shows up at a bank manager's suburban home to kidnap him and hold a family member's life as ransom while they do the job. Like Brown, they're ambushed by Foley and his ATF crew without firing a shot. Unaware of the bust, a desperate Coyle arranges a meeting with Foley the next day to turn Judas on the heist mob. Foley shows him the morning paper, leaving Coyle with nothing to trade and a jail cell dead ahead.
Devastated, he reels to Dillon's bar, where his pal treats him to the usual round of whisky with a beer chaser on the house. He confesses to Dillon he has no idea who turned the key on Scalise. The bar payphone rings and Dillon gets word he's to whack Coyle for ratting on the bank gang. He tells the caller Coyle is there right then, putting on the "he's so sorry" act hearing about the bust, and promises to do the job.
Getting right to work, Dillon serves up another free round and invites Coyle out to a Boston Bruins hockey game at the Garden later that night. Next, he meets with a noisy flak for "the Man", who impatiently demands action. He squares the little terrier up, telling him he's a pro who doesn't like being pushed, and demands $5,000 in advance. The yapdog scurries away to get it.
Dillon doesn't drive, and passes off the young thug playing chauffeur that night as his "wife's nephew". At the Garden Dillon ensures the still disconsolate Coyle gets blotto, oblivious that his host isn't joining him. On the ride home Coyle passes out. Dillon pops him in the head point blank with a .22 revolver, then has the punk slink their barge into a bowling alley parking lot to ditch the body. They pull alongside a car indistinguishable from their own, swap into it, and dissolve into the rain-spattered night.
The next morning Dillon and Foley meet as usual outside the Boston Federal Building. Foley gives the rat his weekly $20 like nothing happened, Scalise tip and all. Eddie Coyle's murder isn't even a blip on his radar - or conscience. And Dillon is good with "the Man", good with "Uncle", and $5,020 richer. The pair skulk in opposite directions 'til next week's Andrew Jackson twists their crooked paths together again.
― Deez NFTs (Neanderthal), Friday, 29 April 2022 03:55 (two years ago) link