Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Hamburger, Meat

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
directed by Peter Yates
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

In movies, Boston is usually treated as a plea for corporate sponsorship (Good Will Hunting) or as a joke (The Departed), but The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the right movie for a dyed-in-the-wool Aerosmith fan – not me, by the way - to be proud of. Never mind that it’s Robert Mitchum sitting at the Bruins game in a belted trench coat; the light in Boston Garden in this movie says more about ways to pass a New England winter than Harvard’s cinematic John Nashes could dream. Some recognizable aspect of the city is in almost every frame, as heavy and watchful as weather for the men who toil at their jobs and drink in bars and try for reconciliation.