Everyone’s at their best in this downbeat gem, especially Robert Mitchum, extraordinarily ordinary as a low-level Boston mob guy playing tipster to Richard Jordan’s cop in hopes of reducing an upcoming sentencing. Peter Yates directs without overdoing the usual Bean Town clichés & conventions, while real locations (exteriors & interiors) help to capture the gritty city, settings & characterizations of George Higgins’ crime novel. Paul Monash’s script lays out lines of action clear as a bell (a series of bank robberies; illegal gun sales; barkeep snitch working both sides of the law; a police sting), and offers great opportunities for the pitch perfect cast to make a mark without having to blow hot-and-cold showing off. (Compare to award-winning, heavily 'Baah-ston' accented pics from Scorsese, Eastwood & Affleck.) Here’s behavioral acting at its best, from the moment Mitchum orders a cup of coffee at a cafeteria no one puts a foot wrong. No one would dare. Painfully ignored on release, its current high rep fully deserved.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Jordan & Mitchum played for the same team next year as private detectives in Sydney Pollack’s THE YAKUZA/’74, as slick & polished as COYLE is down & dirty. (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/yakuza-1974.html)
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Our Italian poster tries to sell this as an Actioner. Hardly the case, but better than a Stateside poster that screams D.O.A.
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