★★★★This movie is a great little discovery for me.
I think I heard Friends of Danny Coyle mentioned in connection with the crime movies I’ve been watching lately, and I finally sat down to watch it one evening after a long day at school. I’d expected another crime movie, but I found a surprisingly sympathetic, compelling character study of a middle-aged guy who’s losing his game a bit but still trying to play. The idea isn’t unheard of in crime movies, but with the powerful Robert Mitchum at the center of this movie, Danny Coyle sets the standard for this kind of movie as far as I’m concerned.
Mitchum’s face is about all you’d really need for the film – rugged and masculine with some echo of his younger good looks still visible in the sags that a life of struggle, cigarettes and booze has led to. Coyle is in his 50s and has been beaten up in life, physically and workwise. Sensing his middle years slipping away, he wants to have his remaining life with his kids and with the wife he clearly loves. He’s surrounded by younger, aggressive, risk-taking hoods (the gun dealer and the robbers) that indicate what Coyle might have been in the past, but Coyle has suffered as a result of his earlier risk taking and, in the wisdom of maturity, doesn’t want to take so many risks and have to face the consequences. His buddy Dillon remains in the life, continually struggling to balance the shifting demands of crime and the police, but Coyle seems to have lost this ability. Though he tries to maneuver between the police and crime, he ends up being used by both the police and his criminal friends as he tries to avoid a prison term that would take him away from his wife and children.
Mitchum’s character is a fantastic, memorable, unique crime figure, but his truth goes beyond the crime genre – he’s a middle-aged guy whose talents are slipping but who still needs to function in his corner of society so he can spend his waning years with the people he loves. Mitchum’s good-looks-over-the-hill and his nuanced, sensitive performance create this memorable, sympathetic character.
Director Peter Yates died just last January. If his passing prompts any re-evaluation of his career achievements (which include Bullit, Breaking Away and – ugh! – Krull), I’m sure this film is set for a serious re-evaluation.
