My dad had been pushing this one for a few weeks and to be honest I was kind of dragging my feet. Then I saw an article on the recent Criterion re-release and was somewhat intrigued but still I let it lie for a bit at the back of my mind. Given Yates’s other works (the Dark Crystal-esque “Krull” among them), who would’ve felt like they were missing out, right? So, for the most part, I didn’t feel too obligated to shift Peter Yates’s “Friends of Eddie Coyle” to the top of my queue. Don’t get me wrong, I loved “Bullitt” as much as the next guy, but it wasn't really a big issue. Then I managed to catch a bit of dialogue from the film, no longer than maybe a minute or two, between Robert Mitchum (Coyle) and Steven Keats as they discussed the origin of Coyle’s gangland nickname: “Fingers”.
