***SPOILERS*** With all his options for avoiding a jail term used up petty Boston hood Eddie "Fingers" Coyle, Robert Mitchum,is now faced with turning over some of his fellow gangsters to get his jail sentence, by the Federal Government, thrown out.
Having been caught on a booze run with 200 cases of stolen of Canadian Club Eddie is soon to turn himself over to the New Hampshire police to serve two to five years in a Federal Penitentiary. Eddie now 51 years old with a wife and three kids feels that he'll never come out of prison alive. He's also troubled by having his wife and kids end up on the welfare rolls with him not being able, by being incarcerated, to provide for them.
Desperate to avoid serving jail time Eddie gets in touch with US Treasury Agent Dave Foley, Richard Jordan, to make a deal with him in setting up this illegal gun dealer Jackie Brown, Steven Keats. Brown a hot shot type is trying to make it big in the Boston underworld and this deal will show he's got what it takes to be a top class hoodlum. With the greatest of ease Eddie has Brown eating out of his hands as he get him to load up his car trunk with some half dozen machine guns to be sold to the Jimmy Scalise, Alex Rocco, gang who specializes in kidnappings and bank robberies.
Falling for the trap that Eddie and his partner Agent Foley set for him Brown is caught red handed with the illegal merchandise, machine guns, which can throw his a** behind bars for the rest of his life. Feeling that his set up of Jackie Brown will give him is freedom from being put behind bars Eddie is told by Foley that he's still not out of the woods. It turns out that the tough on crime Federal Prosecutor, in New Hampshire, still whats Eddie to serve his time unless he gives up someone far bigger then the two bit hood Jakie Brown to him.
Eddie who did the booze job, which he's now facing two to five behind bars, for his good friend and fellow hood Dillon, Peter Boyle, goes to see him at his bar in the run down section of Boston for some timely and fatherly advice as well as a beer which, for Eddie, is always on the house. Dillon a heck of a nice guy who'll give you the shirt off is back if you needed it can only advise Eddie to think things over about turning in any of is friends. Dillon tells Eddie, whom he later treats to a professional hockey game, that ratting out his fellow hoods would not only be a death sentence for him but his wife and three kid as well!
Eddie now, against his good and understanding friend Dillion's advice, sees that the only way out for him is to rat out the Scalise Gang whom he's now in the process of getting guns for. As it turns out the Scalise Gange did get set up on its latest bank robbing and kidnapping effort with, what looks like, Eddie having nothing at all to do with it! Or did he?
Hard edge crime drama set in the crime ridden street and swanky suburbs of Boston with Robert Mitchum as the desperate Eddie Coyle looking for a way out of the mess that he, because of his friends in the world of crime, finds himself in but only ending up getting in deeper instead.
****SPOILERS**** In the end Eddie takes it on the chin, with a .38 caliber slug, for something, ratting on the Scalise Gang, he didn't do. The person, someone that Eddie knew for years, who ended up doing Eddie in was in fact the rat-fink that set up Scalise & Co. but also set up Eddie in taking he rap for it. Playing both ends against the middle did have Eddie escape doing time, two to five, in prison but now he'll spend all his time, from here to eternity, six feet under in a Boston cemetery. So much for Eddie Coyle and the friends he choose, a bunch of back stabbing creeps, to associate with.
Having been caught on a booze run with 200 cases of stolen of Canadian Club Eddie is soon to turn himself over to the New Hampshire police to serve two to five years in a Federal Penitentiary. Eddie now 51 years old with a wife and three kids feels that he'll never come out of prison alive. He's also troubled by having his wife and kids end up on the welfare rolls with him not being able, by being incarcerated, to provide for them.
Desperate to avoid serving jail time Eddie gets in touch with US Treasury Agent Dave Foley, Richard Jordan, to make a deal with him in setting up this illegal gun dealer Jackie Brown, Steven Keats. Brown a hot shot type is trying to make it big in the Boston underworld and this deal will show he's got what it takes to be a top class hoodlum. With the greatest of ease Eddie has Brown eating out of his hands as he get him to load up his car trunk with some half dozen machine guns to be sold to the Jimmy Scalise, Alex Rocco, gang who specializes in kidnappings and bank robberies.
Falling for the trap that Eddie and his partner Agent Foley set for him Brown is caught red handed with the illegal merchandise, machine guns, which can throw his a** behind bars for the rest of his life. Feeling that his set up of Jackie Brown will give him is freedom from being put behind bars Eddie is told by Foley that he's still not out of the woods. It turns out that the tough on crime Federal Prosecutor, in New Hampshire, still whats Eddie to serve his time unless he gives up someone far bigger then the two bit hood Jakie Brown to him.
Eddie who did the booze job, which he's now facing two to five behind bars, for his good friend and fellow hood Dillon, Peter Boyle, goes to see him at his bar in the run down section of Boston for some timely and fatherly advice as well as a beer which, for Eddie, is always on the house. Dillon a heck of a nice guy who'll give you the shirt off is back if you needed it can only advise Eddie to think things over about turning in any of is friends. Dillon tells Eddie, whom he later treats to a professional hockey game, that ratting out his fellow hoods would not only be a death sentence for him but his wife and three kid as well!
Eddie now, against his good and understanding friend Dillion's advice, sees that the only way out for him is to rat out the Scalise Gang whom he's now in the process of getting guns for. As it turns out the Scalise Gange did get set up on its latest bank robbing and kidnapping effort with, what looks like, Eddie having nothing at all to do with it! Or did he?
Hard edge crime drama set in the crime ridden street and swanky suburbs of Boston with Robert Mitchum as the desperate Eddie Coyle looking for a way out of the mess that he, because of his friends in the world of crime, finds himself in but only ending up getting in deeper instead.
****SPOILERS**** In the end Eddie takes it on the chin, with a .38 caliber slug, for something, ratting on the Scalise Gang, he didn't do. The person, someone that Eddie knew for years, who ended up doing Eddie in was in fact the rat-fink that set up Scalise & Co. but also set up Eddie in taking he rap for it. Playing both ends against the middle did have Eddie escape doing time, two to five, in prison but now he'll spend all his time, from here to eternity, six feet under in a Boston cemetery. So much for Eddie Coyle and the friends he choose, a bunch of back stabbing creeps, to associate with.