Sadly, the real Joey Coyle committed suicide a month before this film was released. "Money for Nothing" is dedicated to him in the credits. It sounds like the real-life story was a lot less comical than this film:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/16/obituaries/joey-coyle-40-dies-philad elphian-took-armored-car-s-cash.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=pri nt
Not to be insensitive, but the guy was a moron.
Drugs, suicide, cash in your socks.....give me a break.
The story should simply be titled, "What not to do when you find money"
Yeah, the movie "reality" is always a lot more Hollywoodized than the real story, but not a lot of audiences would flock to see this guy's true life on film – not that a lot of people flocked to this film anyway.
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Not too many people flocked to see this film for the simple reason that they never heard of it, because it was barely promoted at all---I only knew about it after reading an entry for it in Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, and that comment he made about the film not being the comedy people think it is got me interested in wanting to see it. Wonder why it wasn't pushed to begin with.
Hello, activista: I had never heard of this film either, and I was seeing a lot of films in the theater in 1993. I only found out about it when I found it in the clearance bin of a music store. This seemed to get a very narrow release and little promotion.
It's unfortunate it's not better known because it's a decent little yarn with a very strong cast – many of whom would become major stars in the years after this film was released: the late James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Benicio Del Toro. In the lead, John Cusack turns in his usual strong performance, though I don't think this is one of his more memorable roles.
Yup. I am from Philadelphia, and I remember one of the detectives being quoted after Coyle was arrested. I am paraphrasing, but he said if Coyle had just taken the money, kept his mouth shut, and not done anything stupid for a few months afterwards, they would have never have caught him.
shareMy grandfather still lives across the street from Coyle's former house. I was too young myself, I never knew him and my grandfather didn't really know him either, he just seen him walking down the street a couple of times. I just found out about this movie today. Coyle was a fool though from what I gather, he went on a huge spending spree and fell into a deep depression and killed himself and his former girlfriend still lives in his old house.
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