The Friends of Eddie Coyle (#475)

DIRECTOR-APPROVED Blu-ray SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Peter Yates with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Also includes audio commentary from 2009 featuring Yates, a stills gallery, and an essay by critic Kent Jones and a 1973 on-set profile of actor Robert Mitchum from Rolling Stone. In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum (The Night of the Hunter) plays small-time gunrunner Eddie 'Fingers' Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates (Breaking Away) of George V. Higgins's acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. World-weary and living hand to mouth, Coyle works on the sidelines of the seedy Boston underworld just to make ends meet. But when he finds himself facing a second stretch of hard time, he's forced to weigh loyalty to his criminal colleagues against snitching to stay free. Directed with a sharp eye for it's gritty locales and an open heart for it's less-than-heroic characters, this is one of the true treasures of 1970's Hollywood filmmaking-a suspenseful crime drama in stark, unforgiving daylight.