The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Adapted from the novel by George V. Higgins and produced in the wake of "The French Connection," "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is easily the least heralded crime movie classic of the 1970s. Robert Mitchum is Eddie "Fingers" Coyle, a tired veteran middleman working the fringes of the Boston underworld while awaiting sentencing, which prompts him into a little side action turning informer for a real wheeler-dealer of a detective (Richard Jordan in a pitch-perfect performance). Director Peter Yates never pushes the deliberate care of their professional manner and never forces the tension, letting it all play out and finally unravel at the same pace that his characters live off the job. There's nothing showy about the film or the characters, which makes this forthright look into the food chain of criminal work and the practical perspective on survival all the more believable.

Yates sat down for the commentary track in 2009, dawdling through the film with affectionate remembrances (it's still one his favorite of his films) and observations. Also features a booklet with a new essay by critic Kent Jones and a 1973 profile of Mitchum originally written for Rolling Stone magazine.