That Eddie and his crew wouldn't also gun them down when they stole the merch ? i mean there was a good chance Eddie might consider they will come back for revenge and just do the lot of them in and bury them. Did XXXX have a back up plan incase they decide to off them ? or was he just hoping they take the gear and run for the rest of the plan to fall into place ?
sharei have wondered about this endlessly. it's been posted here a lot. and yes it's a good question, which i don't think has really been addressed. if eddie is still alive, wouldn't his life have to change in order to not run into xxxx on a regular basis at the club? (since he just gave xxxx a life membership; and remember the final meeting was at... THAT club)
some have said 'yeah but eddie's whole crew was shot up in that scene with trevor on the phone by the range rover.' ....but a mobster big as eddie, he would have deeper resources than just a few guys in one range rover. yeah?
i dunno mate it's a real puzzle
I don't think Eddie was a mobster. Jimmy describes as being a legitimate business man/construction magnate, and his wife's a proper blue blood. He had a small crew and loose association with crime, through Jimmy as far as we know, but no other clues that he's a mobster.
shareEddie was indeed a mobster and a top one at that. Jimmy even quailed to Eddie as a superior. Why do you think Eddie has all of those bodyguards who are all former elite SIS soldiers, and why would Eddie steal those drugs from xXXx?
sharePossibly Eddie thought that XXX would sort of count his losses and accept that trying to work for Eddie (membership at the club would allow for meetings) at the lower end of the "layer cake" and building his way up the ranks would be the best option.
shareIf you listen to Eddie's little speech to xXXx in his consignment warehouse he makes it pretty clear that he knows xXXx is a certified drug dealer and will be an integral part of the drug economy that Eddie enjoys atop his uppermost layer of the cake. Eddie taking the drugs without payment is a sort of baptism, if you will, for xXXx who is taking Jimmy's place.
I think what the movie fails at slightly is giving us the idea that by killing Mr Troupe (Eddie's top enforcer) and stealing back the pills that xXXx wouldn't be implicated. I for one always wondered if that act alone would warrant Eddie having xXXx assassinated.
Eddie underestimated XXXX. As did Jimmy.
By wiping out his top men XXXX wold force Eddie to reorganise his gang.... by which time XXXX would have been out of the game.
Eddie wouldn't bother looking for revenge because all XXXX did was protect his own goods and men.
If anything Eddie would be more concerned with protecting his own reputation by not telling anyone how it went down.
That's why Eddie isn't at the top of the tree.
Dragan's boss is at the top of the tree because he will kill anyone that crosses him as a matter of principal and dismiss the kind of goods that Eddie and XXXX are battling over with a simple shrug of the shoullders
XXXX's crew didn't gun down Temple's men, or steal the drugs.
The crew from Liverpool did with a tip off from XXXX.
And as XXXX was planning on retiring and leaving the business, he probably didn't have any long-term worries or concerns, anyway.
As far as Eddie was concerned, the Scousers were the ones who nicked his gear, not XXXX.
XXXX had also warned Eddie that the crew he had promised the pills to wouldn't be happy he has given them to Eddie instead. So Eddie would more than likely think that XXXX was right about them.
Well, that answers it for me, esp. the part about the "original thieves" of the pills stealin' 'em back from Eddie's thugs.
It's a bit of genius I didn't catch 'til you mentioned it.
Thanks!
Only thing... Maybe Eddie did get Sidney to kill X* as Sid would be a throwaway killer and mental enough to do it for losing the girl.
(* I've seen the movie twice, so I fell I can call him by his first name )