Robbery According to 'Coyle,' Part Three

For Part One, click here; for Part Two, click here.

So far, the heist scene has comprised several tense, mostly wordless moments of watching and waiting. Now, replacing that tension, comes a brief flurry of activity. For the next minute or so, it's movement, movement, movement.

The panning shot of the gang rushing into the bank and hustling Partridge along a hallway (see Part Two, fig. 44) is followed by a closer panning shot of him being forced into the main area, where the bulk of the segment's remaining action will play out. A glimpse of the bank employee who opened the front door and, more important, the door itself tells us where we are (fig. 1). Since we saw the bank's interior in the film's opener, we already have a good idea of the layout: the main entrance and the vault are directly opposite each other; perpendicular to both is the row of teller windows, with the security cameras mounted on the wall behind them. 

Fig. 1: As Partridge is forced into the bank's main area, the front entrance and the man who opened it for him come into view.

This shot lasts for only two or three seconds. It's followed by a lengthier shot, lasting fifteen seconds, in which a series of actions, captured by precise panning and tilting, maintains the kinetic energy that Yates has suddenly injected into the scene. The shot starts with a wide view from a different angle showing most of the bank's main area. One member of the gang dashes toward screen left (fig. 2), past the door to the vault, and leaps over the gate that leads into the tellers' area (fig. 3). He opens the door to an adjacent storage room to make certain no one is there (fig. 4) and then peels off one of two strips of duct tape from the front of his coveralls. (These guys have come prepared.) Mounting a chair, he tapes over the lens of one of the security cameras we saw in the opener (fig. 5). Climbing down, he grabs the chair and darts to the other side of the tellers' area, where he remounts the chair in order to mask the second security camera. Throughout the shot, he moves ever closer to the camera so that, by the time the shot ends, the wide view shown in fig. 2 has become a medium closeup (fig. 6). Meanwhile, we hear Scalise, off screen, barking orders: "Stay right where you are. Don't press no buttons. Keep quiet and no one will get hurt."

Fig. 2. In this wide shot, one robber dashes toward screen left.

Fig. 3: Leaping over the gate.

Fig. 4: Checking the storage room.

Fig. 5: Taping over the security camera.

Fig. 6: After rushing to the other side of the tellers' area, the robber prepares to mask the second camera. Compare this medium-closeup framing, which ends the shot, to the wide framing that begins it (see fig. 2).

Even more movement comes next. A reverse-angle shot returns us to Partridge, who's being held at gunpoint by Scalise. Another bank employee, who's been in one of the back rooms, is hurried past them by the third member of the gang, the camera panning with them (fig. 7). She joins the male employee in the center of the main area, while behind them the third robber quickly checks another of the adjacent rooms. Time is clearly in short supply.
 

Fig. 7: Another bank employee is brought into the customer area by the third robber.

Now it's back to the other thug, who finishes masking the second security camera. Rushing past the tellers, he recrosses the area and stands beside the gate. He orders one of the two tellers—the same dark-haired woman who waited on Scalise in the opener—to buzz it open (fig. 8). (This points to the film's careful attention to small preparatory details.

Fig. 8: "Hey, open the door."

If we've been especially attentive, we'll remember that during the opener, this woman was herself buzzed into the tellers' area after leaving the vault with Partridge.) The woman, seen briefly in medium closeup, seems hesitant (fig. 9). Cut to a brief medium shot of Partridge—the teller appears to be looking to him for guidance—as Scalise stands behind him, barely visible (fig. 10). This is the first exchange of static shots since the gang entered the bank, signaling a winding down of the initial frantic action.    
 

Fig. 10: Partridge, with Scalise
close behind him

Fig. 9: A moment's hesitation.

The teller, her face frozen in fear, steps forward, joining the robber in a two-shot; she presses the button that unlocks the gate (fig. 11). Next comes a wide shot of the two tellers filing out into the main area (fig. 12). The four employees are now all in one place (fig. 13). Scalise is smart enough to know that they'll obey his orders more readily if they come from Partridge. "Tell 'em to sit down on the floor," Scalise commands. "Please, sit down on the floor," the banker repeats. They do so, lowering themselves out of view.

 Fig. 11: Unlocking the gate.

Fig. 12: The tellers file out into
the main customer area.

Fig. 13: The camera panning with them, the two tellers join their coworkers. Then the entire staff, at Scalise's order (conveyed via Partridge), sits on the floor

Apart from the shot illustrated in fig. 1 (whose main purpose is to inform us that we've entered the main area of the bank), the dominant vantage point has been from behind the teller windows. That's where the camera is positioned when the robber rushes into the tellers' area to mask the security cameras (see figs 2–6). And that's where it's positioned when one employee is brought in from a back room (see fig. 7), as well as when Partridge and Scalise are briefly shown in medium shot (see fig. 10). It's only during the quick exchange involving the hesitant teller and the man who has invaded her space (see figs. 8, 9, and 11) that we see any action from the opposite side of the windows. The shot depicted in figs. 12 and 13 repeats the wide view that began this frantic activity (see fig. 7) and signals the beginning of a new phase of the holdup. It also serves as an establishing shot in which all the characters momentarily share the same frame. It's the last shot, however, from a perspective behind the teller windows; future master shots will come from the opposite angle.

With the employees seated on the floor, Partridge addresses them in a medium shot (fig. 14). Scalise, standing behind him, has a hand on his arm and, though we can't see it, a gun to his back. Following Scalise's order, he explains that once the time lock disengages, he'll open the vault and "these men will get what they came for." As his words continue off screen, Yates cuts to a medium wide shot of the bank staff (fig. 14). Their stony expressions hark back to those of Partridge's family.

Fig. 14: Partridge explains the situation.

Fig. 15: The bank staff, seated on the floor.

In a return to the two-shot of Partridge and Scalise (see fig. 14), the banker explains the situation at his home and the danger to his family should anyone interfere with the robbery. As he speaks, there's a cut to a close shot of two of the female employees (fig. 16), followed by a closeup of the male employee (fig. 17). In the latter shot, we see the lower body of one of the criminals and the barrel of his gun pointed at the hostage's head. Then it's back to the Partridge-Scalise two-shot; Partridge says that he'll be leaving with the holdup men and that no one should "set off any alarms." With the camera panning from right to left, Partridge and Scalise move to the far side of the vault door (fig. 18). Scalise asks when the time lock will open. "Eight forty-eight," Partridge replies.

Fig. 16: As Partridge speaks off screen about his family, Yates cuts to this closeup of two of the female employees. And then . . .

Fig. 17: . . . he cuts to this closeup of the male employee, a gun pointed at his head.

Fig. 18: "What time does it open?"

We've now returned to watch-and-wait mode, recalling the earlier situation outside the bank. Here, however, the suspense-building doesn't depend on POV shots; instead, it's created and sustained by the sort of analytical editing introduced during the scene at Partridge's home. Note the shots above that isolate Partridge and Scalise from his employees (figs. 14 and 15) and also the shots that isolate the employees from each other (figs. 16 and 17). This cutting pattern will prevail throughout the rest of the scene, and it's appropriate to the confined space in which the action unfolds. More important, it gives the various characters—both victims and criminals—their own moments and, in a way unique to cinema, the image juxtapositions capture and evoke the inherent danger of the situation to maximum effect. 

Fig. 19: This closeup is reminiscent of earlier,
similarly tight shots of other gang members.

The next shot adds a new element to the editing mix (fig. 19). It's a closeup of the man who masked the security cameras; he's now positioned himself a few feet away from the bank staff. Since the bank robbers are all dressed and disguised identically, this image echoes the one we first saw of Scalise when he appeared at Partridge's home, as well as the shot of yet another gang member during that brief crosscut to the home just before the banker opened the back door (see Part Two, figs. 4 and 39). In short, three different men but similar closeups. The only gang member we can identify is Scalise, the spokesman for the group. That gives him a special power in this sequence—he's the leader, obviously, the one who's orchestrating the robbery—but visually his accomplices are no less menacing. The next shot repeats the one illustrated in fig. 15: the four employees seated on the floor, the objects of the man's gaze.[1] And then there's a repeat of the shot depicted in fig. 19. This time, the man raises his revolver into the frame (fig. 20), cocking it as he takes aim.

Fig. 20: A striking view of one of the firearms that
Eddie Coyle acquired for the gang.

Not only does this shot ratchet up the tension, but it also presents the most dramatic view yet of one of the firearms used by the gang. It reminds us of what so much of the film has been about prior to this sequence: the acquisition of those weapons. The camera's straight-on positioning offers a clear view of both the gun's barrel and the bullets in its chambers. In the context of the scene, the gun is aimed at the bank employees on the floor, but in its visual framing, it's aimed directly at us, the audience.[2] And what that tells us, if we pause to consider the overall narrative, is that Eddie Coyle, the middleman who supplied the weapon, is part of a very deadly business indeed.

Yates cuts next to a new establishing shot (fig. 21), which reverses by 180 degrees the earlier master illustrated in fig. 13. This reversal places Scalise and Partridge on the right side of the frame instead of the left. The shot isn't spatially confusing, however, chiefly because various familiar elements—such as the bank employees on the floor, the row of teller windows in the background, and most especially, the thug aiming his revolver in the foreground, his back to us now—enable us to readjust our perception of the space almost instantaneously. It also helps that we saw a similar view of this space during the film's opener (see Part One, fig. 22).

Fig. 21: A new master shot puts all the characters in the same frame.
  

To prolong the suspense as the wait for the time lock to open continues, Yates begins subdividing the space once more. Here are the ten shots that follow:

• Close two-shot of Scalise and Partridge. Beads of sweat are visible on the latter's forehead (fig. 22). He stands stock-still while Scalise turns his head nervously.
• Closeup of the dials on the vault door (fig. 23). The angle approximates Partridge's POV.
• Closeup of the dark-haired teller, her eyes brimming with fear (fig. 24).

Fig. 22: Anxious waiting.

Fig. 23: The vault dials.

Fig. 24: Fear-filled eyes.

• Repeated closeup of the male employee (see fig. 17).
• Repeated closeup of the vault dials (see fig. 23).
• Repeated closeup of Partridge and Scalise (see fig. 22). Scalise grows impatient, asking, "When the fuck does it open?" Partridge is silent.
• Repeated medium closeup of two female employees (see fig. 16).
• Repeated straight-on closeup of the robber aiming the revolver (see fig. 20). He lowers the gun slightly, apparently refocusing his aim on a particular hostage, probably one of the two women seen in the previous shot.
• Repeated closeup of Partridge and Scalise (see fig. 22).
• Repeated closeup of the dials (see fig. 23). Suddenly a click is heard, and the light between the two dials comes on.

This series of closeups, mostly repetitions of previous shots, raises the tension level higher and higher. When Scalise impatiently repeats his question about the time lock (as if Partridge could do anything to make it open faster) and throws in an expletive for good measure, he betrays his own edginess—a sign of how quickly the situation could spin out of control. The images are held for no more than two or three seconds, and the repetitions create a sort of "ticktock" rhythm, though there's enough visual variety among the shots to avoid a mechanical feel. Notable, too, are the juxtapositions: the shot of the thug holding the gun comes just after the two-shot of the female employees; the shots of the vault dials come either before or after the images of Partridge and Scalise. In the first instance, the shots reemphasize the potential for violence; in the second, they mark the protracted passage of time as the banker and the man with a gun to his back, both of them anxious, wait for the telltale "click."[3]

When that click does come, Yates cuts to a wider two-shot of Partridge and Scalise that includes the vault door and the dials (fig. 25). "That's it," says Partridge. Scalise orders him to open the door, adding that once he gets it open, he should move to the center of the room "so I can watch you and the rest of them at the same time."
 

Fig. 25: "That's it."

Fig. 26: Opening the vault.

Fig. 27: Entering the vault.

Thus begins the lengthiest shot in the entire sequence, lasting just over a minute. Partridge carefully dials in a combination (fig. 26), turns the large wheel below the dials, and then, with painful slowness, swings open the heavy door toward screen left. Entering the vault (fig. 27), he unlocks two more doors and prepares to open a safe within the innermost chamber. In one sense, the wider angle and lengthiness of this shot release the tension generated by the succession of relatively quick, largely static closeups that preceded it; but at the same time, its slow, deliberate progression creates a new kind of suspense.

In a return to the master-shot setup illustrated in fig. 21, Partridge leaves the vault and moves into the main area of the room (fig. 28). Meanwhile, Scalise's two accomplices bolt into the vault and out of view. Scalise remains where he is, his gun pointed at Partridge. Yates cuts to a panning shot—moving from a medium closeup to a medium shot—of the two men entering the vault; once they reach the safe, they unfold some large plastic garbage bags (fig. 29). Visible inside the safe are the cash-filled cloth bags we recognize from the armored car delivery during the opener. The robbers' quick movement adds another burst of kinetic energy to the scene, varying the overall rhythm.

Fig. 28: Partridge joins his staff as Scalise's accomplices rush into the vault.

Fig. 29: Preparing for the "cash withdrawal."

With two of the robbers now in the vault and Partridge repositioned several feet away from Scalise, Yates begins a new round of analytical editing. Back in the main area of the bank, we see a closeup of Partridge (fig. 30). Scalise begins to speak, off screen, and the banker turns his head toward screen right. "You and I are going to go out and get in the car and go," says the gang leader. "Tell them what to do." As Scalise speaks, we see him in tight closeup, one of the tightest such shots in the entire film—a potent reminder that he controls the situation (fig. 31).

Fig. 30: Closeup of Partridge, standing above his staff.

Fig. 31: "Tell them what to do," says Scalise in tight closeup.

Fourteen more shots, all brief, follow:

• Medium wide shot of Partridge standing above his seated employees (fig. 32). He explains to them that once he and the men have left, they're to open the bank and conduct business as usual. "You've got to give these men at least an hour," he says.
• Medium shot of three of the employees, listening to Partridge (fig. 33). 

Fig. 32: Partridge tells the employees to open the bank after he and the three men have left.

Fig. 33: The staff listens intently.

• Repeated closeup of Partridge (see fig. 30). "For God's sake," he pleads, "give them the time."
• Repeated closeup of Scalise (see fig. 31). He turns his head toward screen right at the sound of activity inside the vault, which cues the next shot.
• Repeated medium shot of the men inside the vault (see fig. 29), stuffing the garbage bags with loot.
• Repeated medium wide shot of Partridge and the bank staff (see fig. 32). Partridge has his head turned toward Scalise and the vault.
• Repeated closeup of Scalise (see fig. 31). He turns his head away from the vault, toward screen left, in the direction of Partridge. The camera pans slightly with his head movement.
• Tight closeup of Scalise's revolver (fig. 34). As the gun is moved slightly to the left, the camera pans with it. Like the earlier images of Scalise's accomplice aiming his revolver, this closeup allows us to see the bullets in the weapon's chambers.
• Repeated closeup of Partridge (see fig. 30). He turns his head from screen right toward screen left, noticeably disquieted by the movement of Scalise's revolver. The camera pans slightly with his movement.
      Nota bene: The slight right-to-left panning movements in this and the two previous shots are a marvelous touch—a subtle flourish in which the movements seem to flow across the shots, from one to the next, like an ill wind. They suggest a transference of malevolent energy: from Scalise to his revolver and then to Partridge, who turns his head away in response. 

 

Fig. 34: Scalise's gun.

 

• Repeated medium shot of three of the employees (see fig. 33).
• Medium shot of the men in the vault. Finishing their task, they head out the door (fig. 35). This panning shot, which ends in medium closeup, is a reversal of the shot illustrated in fig. 29.
• Reverse angle medium shot of the men leaving the vault (fig. 36). One of them nods to Scalise; the job is done.
• Repeated closeup of Scalise (see fig. 31). He nods to Partridge: "Okay, let's go."
• Repeated wide shot of the room (see fig. 21). As Partridge walks out of the frame, he's followed by Scalise (fig. 37). This return to the master shot reunites all the characters briefly in the same frame; Partridge and Scalise's departure from that frame—they're following the two accomplices—is the ideal lead-in to the third and final segment of the sequence.

 

Fig. 35: Their bags filled with loot, the men exit the vault. The camera pans with them as they move from medium shot to medium closeup (shown here).

Fig. 36: In a reverse angle from outside the vault, one of the men nods to Scalise.

Fig. 37: Partridge and Scalise head for the back door.

The gang has their money, but Partridge's fate remains unsettled. In the next shot, we see Scalise—unmasked, relaxed, his collar unbuttoned—in the back seat of a moving sedan, the road receding behind him (fig. 38). When the car stops, Scalise tells Partridge, who's been crouching out of frame, to sit up. While Partridge complies, Scalise quickly exits the car, flashing that big revolver of his, and circles around the back of the vehicle. The banker is wearing the black hood again. When Scalise opens the door for him, Yates cuts to a shot directed across the roof of the car (fig. 39). Partridge rises into the frame, and Scalise delivers one last, well-rehearsed speech to his hostage: "I'm going to point you, and you start walking. You'll hear me get back in the car. You just keep walking. We've got the windows down and the guns on you. Count to one hundred very slowly, and that's when you'll be safe. Start walking, Mr. Partridge."

The setting is a desolate spot somewhere along the waterfront on the Boston outskirts; a fence running parallel to the road is perhaps fifty yards away, the blue bay waters glistening beyond it. Partridge begins to walk, and a downward tilt of the camera follows Scalise as he slides into the backseat, closes the door, rolls down the window, and aims his gun at the retreating figure of the banker (fig. 40). The suspense mounting, a closeup from behind captures Partridge as he heads, unsteadily, toward the fence (fig. 41). Cut to a reverse angle of his feet moving across the grass, bumping into some construction debris (fig. 42).

Fig. 38: The job is over—except for one last detail.

Fig. 39: "Start walking, Mr. Partridge."

Fig. 40: Sliding into the back seat, Scalise aims his always-at-the-ready revolver.

Fig. 41: Approaching the fence.

Fig. 42: Encountering an obstacle.

Another close shot from behind reveals that Partridge has almost made it to the fence (fig. 43). He stops and begins to wrestle with the knot that secures the black hood. And finally: cut to an extreme wide shot, which reveals an empty road and the tiny figure of Partridge standing by the fence (fig. 44). The hood is off his head. He looks around. His ordeal is over.

Fig. 43: Removing the hood.

Fig. 44: An empty road and a lone figure by the water.

After we've seen so many closeups and so much confined space and felt so much tension deriving from a situation fraught with danger, this last image of mostly empty space, the now-freed banker at the center of it, brings a welcome sigh of relief. It's the perfect ending to the sequence.

With its well-defined three-part structure—first, the hostage-taking at Partridge's home; second, the actual robbery of the bank; and third, the release of Partridge—this sequence could easily stand as a short film on its own. (I'll take a cue from Vincent Canby and call it "How to Rob a Bank."[4]) But, as I've tried to show, it works on a visual/formal level in large part because of the careful preparation that came in the movie's opening scene. Beyond that it also sets the stage for the subsequent course of the narrative.

*  *  *

(Warning: Spoilers follow.)

After the bank heist, we see a bit of Eddie's family life, the potential loss of which is the main reason Eddie seeks to avoid a second jail sentence. He doesn't want his wife to have to take a job or go on welfare, and he worries about the embarrassment his children will suffer among their peers should he wind up a jailbird. (It's ironic, of course, that Eddie, so concerned about his own family, has no problem being part of an enterprise that puts another man's family in danger.) Eddie's predicament prompts him to meet with Foley, to whom he's fed information in the past. Maybe the agent can help him out with the prosecutor and judge who are bearing down on him.

Foley, however, tells him that his offerings as a stoolie haven't been particularly valuable—certainly not enough to merit an intervention in his upcoming sentencing. Pressing Eddie for better information, Foley alludes to his earlier conversation with Dillon: "The way I hear it, you may be mixed up in something that's going on." Eddie balks; he's not about to inform on Scalise and his crew—yet. Changing the subject, Eddie recalls (without identifying the source) something Jackie Brown told him in an earlier scene: that one of Brown's other clients wanted to buy machine guns, the possession and sale of which carry a life sentence in Massachusetts. This sparks Foley's interest. If he could get a line on "some machine guns and the fellow that's selling 'em and whoever's buying 'em," he'd be willing to put in a good word for Eddie (fig. 45).[5]

Fig. 45: Eddie and Foley discuss how Eddie might escape a jail term.

This creates an expectation that machine guns will somehow enter the plot; and sure enough, two scenes later, Jackie Brown negotiates a deal for them with a scruffy young couple who also want to rob a bank (they appear to be aspiring revolutionaries). Not long afterward comes a tensely staged nighttime transaction in which Brown acquires those weapons. Meanwhile, Eddie pressures Jackie to provide more handguns—and fast. This signals to the audience that a second bank job is coming up soon.

When that heist does occur, arriving at about the one-hour mark, things don't go strictly according to plan. One of the bank employees presses an alarm button and is shot dead (fig. 46), although the gang does manage to get away with the money. This fulfills (pretty literally) Anton Chekhov's famous dictum about the need, in fiction and drama, to deliver on what you promise: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off."[6] So, in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, after all the talk of guns and, more important, images of guns, one actually does go off—even though it's a revolver and not a rifle. The threat of death by violence that has underlain so much of what we've witnessed up to this point is finally realized. While it's much shorter than the first heist sequence, this scene is no less deftly shot and edited; the suspenseful buildup to the moment the button is pressed is particularly notable.

Fig. 46: A gun finally goes off during the second robbery.

Though alarmed by the killing and fearful that future heists will bring the full weight of law enforcement crashing down on their heads, Eddie continues to acquire guns for the gang. Meeting with Jackie Brown in a strip-mall parking lot for the latest delivery of weapons, he notices something else in the fledgling gunrunner's trunk: several automatic rifles. He gets word to Foley, who quickly assembles a team of agents that captures Brown with the incriminating firearms.[7] Having finally given Foley some solid information that's led to a major arrest, Eddie thinks he's home free. But Foley reports that the prosecutor isn't satisfied, that he'll only go easy on Eddie if the latter continues to help out with other cases. Here we suspect that Eddie might betray the gang, but the idea of turning "permanent fink" disgusts him. Yet what choice does he have? Foley suggests that he think it over.

When the time for the third heist comes, we see an aspect of the gangsters' methods we haven't seen before: the breaking and entering. Scalise, Artie Van, and two others gather for the job and drive to the home of their latest bank-manager victim. They don ski masks before jimmying a lock and invading the house. Once inside, they take up positions in the kitchen, guns drawn, recalling what they did at Partridge's home. But this time, in a satisfyingly ironic reversal, they're the ones who get a shock. Instead of the banker and his wife, Foley and a SWAT team enter the room (fig. 47). "April fool, motherfuckers," the agent says, smiling sardonically. "Drop it."

Fig. 47. Foley foils the third robbery.

Though we believe at first that Eddie Coyle betrayed the bank robbers, we soon discover that the "fink" was someone else. Eddie is prepared to turn over the gang in exchange for witness protection, but when he makes this proposal to Foley, he's met with these disheartening words: "I guess you haven't seen the papers. You're too late, Eddie. It all happened without you."

While he didn't in fact inform on the gang, the mafia higher-ups think he did: they're all too aware that the jail term he faces gave him a motive. So, they hire a hit man who just happens to be Dillon—the one genuine friend, it's seemed to Eddie, that he actually has.[8] Playing on that supposed friendship, Dillon gets Eddie drunk, takes him to a hockey game (pretending he's doing so to cheer Eddie up), and then, after the game, shoots the hapless small-timer in the back of the head (fig. 48).

Fig. 48: The last of Eddie.

The final scene, another meeting between Dillon and Foley at Boston City Hall Plaza, delivers the crowning irony: it was Dillon who ratted out the bank robbers. "Okay, you gave us Scalise, and we're grateful," Foley tells him. "[If] you can't talk about Coyle, you can't talk about Coyle. . . . We've been friends a long time now. I've never asked a friend yet to do something he couldn't do [if] I knew he couldn't do it. Have a nice day." The two men separate, and the closing credits roll.

Does Foley even suspect that Dillon is Eddie's murderer? Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. Eddie Coyle was such small potatoes that no one—save perhaps his wife and kids—will miss him.

*  *  *

Although I've never taken a class in screenwriting or read any of the how-to manuals, I am aware of the so-called "three-act paradigm" that some teachers of the craft promulgate.[9] Above, I even nodded to that notion myself when I pointed out the neat three-part structure of the first heist sequence.[10] But when I look at the film as a whole, it seems to me more readily dividable into four acts, with the exploits of Scalise's bank-robbing gang being the key markers.

The initial heist sequence is obviously the end of Act I. Almost everything we've seen until this point—from the casing of the bank in the film's opener, through the transactions that supply the weapons for the robbery, to the revelation that Dillon is an informant who suspects some major crime is about to happen—has been leading up it. The most significant divergence from this main thread is the revelation of Eddie's looming prison sentence and his desperation to avoid it. One detail—Jackie Brown's offhand mention to Eddie of another client who's interested in machine guns—doesn't seem significant at first, but it soon becomes very important indeed.

In the second act, Jackie Brown's dealings with his machine-gun buyers and suppliers develop into a major subplot. The film ties Brown's activity to the protagonist's sentencing dilemma by suggesting that if Eddie can provide information about it, he might be able to avoid prison. This segment of the film also keeps the bank-heist plot going when Eddie pressures Jackie for a fast delivery of more handguns. That the second heist results in deadly violence marks a major turning point and provides an appropriate ending to Act II, in that it refocuses our attention on Scalise and his crew and their key role in the plot.

Act III resolves the Jackie Brown subplot but it fails to give Eddie what he wants. Now the only other thing he has to sell to Foley is his knowledge of Scalise's gang, whose resort to violence will inevitably intensify the effort to capture them. Though he hesitates, we suspect that he'll soon give in. He appears to have done just that when Foley thwarts the heist—another major turning point.

Act IV charts Eddie's decline and fall. It begins with the revelation that he was not the informant, though he was prepared to be. He has no choice now but to take his lumps and go to prison. However, the mob's awareness of Eddie's motive makes him the target of a hit, which Dillon carries out with cold efficiency. The pileup of ironies has become a small mountain by the time the film's final scene reveals Dillon to be the actual snitch.

This breakdown of the film's structure demonstrates the centrality of the bank heists to the film. These crimes are the points on which the main narrative pivots, providing the protagonist Eddie Coyle—a middleman in the operation—with a means of income and later a possible way out of his sentencing predicament. The placement of the caper scenes at key junctures in the narrative not only points to the action that follows but also, thanks to the expert technique of Yates and editor Patricia Jaffe, adds moments of tension and excitement to a film that, as I noted at the outset, otherwise consists largely of meetings and conversations. While the dialogue is excellent, not to mention the performances that deliver it, viewers generally expect crime thrillers to provide a few thrills, and that's what these scenes do. But more than that, as I've also stressed, they underline the mortal stakes of the criminals' activity, affording the film's only glimpses of ordinary citizens and the dangers to them posed by that activity. Critics like Ebert and Canby obviously wanted to see more of Robert Mitchum's performance and the character he plays, and that's understandable; but to my mind another reviewer back in 1973, Time magazine's Richard Schickel, delivered the better judgment. He opined that the film strikes just the right balance:

Peter Yates is not a director who asserts his personality in obvious ways. Eddie Coyle is . . . a work which efficiently and unobtrusively establishes an ambience that helps to explicate behavior. This is not a matter of directorial "touches," but rather a case of careful overall polish that brings out the rough grain of his raw material. He accomplishes this with no sacrifice to the pacing of his action sequences or to the suspenseful development of his story's arc.[11]

Exactly.


NOTES
[1] If I have any criticism of this scene, it's that Yates didn't adjust the angle here so that it aligned more closely with the sight line of the gunman. Since it was initially used as part a shot–reverse shot exchange with Partridge, who was standing in a different spot, it appears a little off here. 
[2] Could this be an homage to one of the most famous images in early cinema, the final shot in the Edison Company's The Great Train Robbery (dir. Edwin S. Porter, 1903)? It was probably unintentional, but the resemblance is striking:

 

[3] It's instructive to consider how differently Higgins handles the suspense in the equivalent scene of the novel. There, the holdup occupies a chapter which, though narrated in third person, is limited to Partridge's point of view. While waiting for the lock to disengage, the banker has a flashback. A few months before, he and his family were vacationing at a fishing cabin in New Hampshire. After an outing with his children, he encountered a large rattlesnake coiled within a few feet of him; he froze in place, expecting the worst, until the snake finally slithered away. This remembered incident is analogous to the robbery Partridge now finds himself at the center of: it may be the only other time in his life that he felt so frightened. Higgins doubtless counted on the fact that most of us are just herpetophobic enough to imagine our own terror if we were confronted with a venomous snake; it's certainly a more likely scenario, at least for anyone who's ever walked in the woods, than being caught up in a bank robbery. This distinctly literary device thus enables us to transfer the anxiety provoked by an easily imagined situation to one that may be less relatable. See Higgins, Friends of Eddie Coyle, 45–47.

[4] See Part One, paragraph 4.

[5] Note the composition in fig. 45: Eddie sits atop a picnic table at screen left. The ramrod-straight figure of Foley perfectly divides the frame. On Eddie's side of the frame, a barred gate in the background visually separates Eddie from Foley and obscures the view of the open landscape beyond. To the right of Foley that open landscape is clearly visible. Thus the dramatic content of the scene is echoed in the visuals: the barred gate at screen left evokes the bars of a prison—the possible fate that awaits Eddie—while the open landscape at screen right promises the freedom that Eddie hopes for. And Foley, upright at the center of the frame, is in Eddie's mind all that stands between the two.
[6]  Quoted in "Chekhov's Gun," Wikipedia, retrieved May 10, 2020.
[7] The scene of Brown's capture would be another good candidate for formal analysis. Its handling of assorted variables—Jackie waiting in his car, the agents surrounding him from multiple sides, the arrival and departure of the wannabe outlaw couple (Jackie won't hand over the guns until he's sure it's safe), and finally Jackie's failed attempt at a speedy getaway—constitutes another suspenseful and exciting piece of filmmaking.
[8] Adding to the irony is the fact that Dillon, prior to the action depicted in the film, was the man who set up the job—transporting stolen liquor—that got Eddie arrested and later convicted. Eddie refused to identify him, earning Dillon's praise: "You're a stand-up guy."
[9] The concept of the "three-act paradigm" is usually credited to the late Syd Field, author of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (New York: Dell, 1979) and several other books on the subject.
[10] I should add that I wasn't thinking of Syd Field when I wrote that but, rather, of Aristotle's Poetics.
[11] Richard Schickel, review of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Time, July 2, 1973, reprinted in Film 73/74: An Anthology by the National Society of Film Critics, ed. Jay Cocks and David Denby (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974), 231.