Miller's Crossing

Plot synopsis:
Synopsis by "Cult Movies" author Danny Peary...Aging Irishman Leo (Albert Finney) runs an unnamed eastern city during Prohibition. Leo's chief adviser - and the only man he trusts - is the intelligent, nonviolent Tommy (Gabriel Byrne). Leo controls the mayor and the chief of police. However, the Italian Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) - whose chief henchman is the brutal, bisexual Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) - is becoming a threat to Leo's supremacy. Caspar tells Leo that he wants the unlikeable "Bernie" Bernbaum killed, because Bernie has been cutting into Caspar's gambling profits by selling information about fixed fights to betters. But Leo refuses to allow this because Bernie is the brother of Leo's tough mistress Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). Tommy tells Leo to allow Bernie's murder, because Verna isn't worth their going to war with Caspar. Tommy, fearing Leo's life is in danger, confesses to him that he also has been sleeping with Verna. Leo beats Tommy up and kicks him out of his organization. Caspar becomes the major power in town, taking control of the mayor and chief of police. Much to Dane's chagrin, Caspar recruits Tommy into their operation. Tommy must prove his loyalty by killing Bernie in the wilderness, at Miller's Crossing (hence the title of the movie). He allows the pleading Bernie to live, on the condition that no one finds out Bernie's still alive. Dane doesn't believe Tommy killed Bernie, so he takes him back to Miller's Crossing with the intention of finding Bernie's body. A body is there, with its face shot in. Bernie has murdered Dane's male lover, Mink - but Dane can't recognize the corpse. Bernie blackmails Tommy by saying he'll come out into the open unless Tommy helps him kill Caspar. Tommy convinces Caspar that Dane and Mink - whom Caspar thinks is still alive - are secretly selling information about Caspar's fixed fights. Before Dane can kill Tommy, Caspar brutally kills Dane. Tommy maneuvers Caspar to rendezvous with Mink; instead Caspar finds Bernie, who kills him. Tommy tells Bernie that they'll blame the murder on Dane, whom Bernie thinks is still alive. Tommy takes Bernie's gun, supposedly to hide the evidence. But then Tommy reveals that Dane is dead and, in revenge for being blackmailed, points Bernie's own gun at him. Bernie again pleads for his life, thinking Tommy hasn't got what it takes to kill anyone. Tommy blasts him between the eyes. Leo marries Verna and invites Tommy to work for him again, but Tommy turns him down.=====================================In the opening scene, an Italian gangster named Johnny Caspar is meeting with Leo O'Bannon, the city's most powerful gangster. Caspar, with his most trusted adviser and bodyguard, the fearsome Eddie "The Dane" Dane in tow, talks to Leo about a Jewish grifter named Bernie Bernbaum, who's been selling information on boxing matches that Caspar has been "fixing". Caspar wants to kill Bernie for chiseling in on the odds he fixes for his fights. Leo refuses to allow Caspar to eliminate Bernie and Caspar leaves, furious. After he leaves, Leo gloats to his own adviser, Tom Regan, that he'd so easily angered Caspar. Tom, who owes a large sum to a bookie, Lazarre, tells Leo that he should turn Bernie over to Caspar. Leo refuses because he's romantically involved with Bernie's sister, Verna, who's only dating Leo to protect her brother. Leo, as an act of friendship, tries to pay off Tom's debt to Lazarre, but Tom refuses, not wanting to fall under the thumb of either side.Tom wakes up the next morning after a night of hard drinking and card-playing where he lost his fedora to Verna and a man named Mink (who provides Bernie with his hot tips to cheat Caspar and is also the lover of both Bernie and The Dane). Tom asks the bartender, Tad, what happened the night before & about a bet he'd laid on a horse with huge odds. Tom's horse lost and Tom now owes even more money to Lazarre. Tom tells Tad to lay yet another wager on another horse with Lazarre.Tom goes to Verna's apartment. He demands his hat but Verna won't let him in, slamming the door in his face. When he knocks again & she answers, she lets him in when he asks for a drink. The two have been having an affair behind Leo's back for some time.Leo shows up at Tom's apartment very late that night and tells Tom he can't find Verna. He'd hired a private detective, "Rug" Daniels (so named because he wears a toupee) for Verna's safety, but Verna still gave Daniels the slip and disappeared. Tom tells Leo he has no idea of Verna's whereabouts and Leo leaves. Tom goes into his bedroom where Verna is half-asleep. When she asks if Tom told Leo she was there, Tom scoffs and tells her he'd told Leo she was a tramp. Verna is instantly furious and throws something at Tom.The next day, Tom meets again with Leo at his private club. Leo is already meeting with the Mayor & O'Doul, the chief of police. Leo has given the Chief a few of Casper's speakeasy locations. He also informs Tom that Verna turned up & is downstairs Tom suggests that Leo turn over Bernie to avoid a long & destructive war in the town. Leo still refuses and appears flustered with Tom. Tom gets a drink from Tad and marches into the ladies powder room to confront Verna and tell her to stop her charade with Leo solely for Bernie's protection. The two have a violent confrontation where Verna punches Tom and he hurls his glass at her, breaking a vanity mirror. Verna storms out of the room.Tom lays another bet with a short bookie and is picked up by two of Casper's thugs, Frankie (a tall, hulking man) & TicTac (a shorter but much smarter man). They take him to Casper's club where Tom meets with Johnny himself. Casper offers to pay Tom's debt to Lazarre and adds a substantial amount to the check he writes, hoping that Tom will become his personal adviser & help him win the war against Leo. Tom rudely refuses and Casper walks out, leaving Frankie behind to beat Tom. Tom slyly hits Frankie with a chair; Frankie gets TicTac to help and the two beat Tom briefly until the police arrive to raid the club. Tom blacks out but is revived by another officer. Outside the club, Tom talks to the Chief who seems to agree with Leo's idea of turning over Bernie. Tom tells the chief to stay in line with Leo.Tom again spends the night with Verna. At Leo's house, two of Casper's hoods, armed with Thompsons, sneak inside and quietly march up the stairs to assassinate Leo. However, a fire that breaks out downstairs alerts Leo and he's able to outfox the two assassins, killing them both. A car drives by shooting at Leo, who confidently strides down the street shooting with one of the thugs' Thompsons. The car crashes, catches fire and explodes.The next night Tom goes to Leo's club office and talks to him about how Casper is becoming more aggressive and will try to kill Leo again. Tom continues to advise Leo to turn over Bernie. When Leo refuses again, Tom finally tells Leo that he's been having an affair with Verna. Leo is silent and Tom leaves his office. Out in the hallway, Leo begins to hit Tom until he falls down the stairs. Leo calls his end to his relationship with Tom "the kiss off."Tom takes another meeting with Casper, this time with Eddie Dane present. Casper reveals that he'd heard about Tom and Leo being on the outs and is enthusiastic about hiring him. However, Casper needs to know he can trust Tom first and asks him to reveal Bernie Bernbaum's location. Tom tells him and Casper sends Tom and Frankie and TicTac to the Royale Hotel where they find Bernie and drag him out to the car. Tom drives them all to Miller's Crossing, a forest outside town notorious for gangland slayings. TicTac hands Tom a pistol and tells him that he's been charged by Casper with killing Bernie. He also tells Tom to use two shots: one to put Bernie down and the second shot to Bernie's head to make sure he's dead. Tom takes Bernie into the woods. Bernie pleads with Tom to let him live, appealing to Tom's sense of decency. While he's down on his knees begging, Tom shoots, deliberately missing Bernie. When Bernie tries to thank him, Tom tells him to shut his mouth and leave town immediately. As Bernie runs, Tom fires his 2nd shot. He returns to the car, telling TicTac that he killed Bernie.Tom meets with Casper, who tells him that his own bookie, Mink Larouie, lover of both The Dane and Bernie, has mysteriously disappeared. Tom later meets Verna at a boxing club & tells her to leave town for her own safety. Back at her apartment, The Dane breaks in demanding to know where Leo is. He tells Verna that she shouldn't bother covering for Tom since Tom killed Bernie. When two of Leo's guys burst in and try to stop The Dane, he shoots one and wounds the other. The one left alive tells him where Leo is and is gunned down.Bernie sneaks into Tom's apartment and they have a short conversation. Bernie is worried that his begging for his life at Miller's Crossing will get out. He demands that Tom kill Casper, threatening to appear publicly if Casper isn't dead in a few days. Just after he walks out, Tom jumps from his window to the street, trying to catch Bernie on his way out. Bernie outsmarts Tom and kicks him in the face.Tom is picked up on the street by The Dane, TicTac and Frankie. The Dane, still suspicious of Tom, had beaten the two thugs until they'd told him they didn't personally see Bernie's body after Tom shot him. The Dane plans to take Tom out to Miller's Crossing to verify that Bernie's dead. As they walk through the woods, Tom stops and vomits on a tree. The Dane draws his pistol to kill him when TicTac suddenly finds a body. The dead man's face is covered with gunpowder burns and has been partially eaten by birds. TicTac tells The Dane that he'd heard two shots from Tom's pistol.Tom visits a washed-up boxer named Drop Johnson. Drop has been raking in a sizable amount of money -- Tom suspects that Bernie has been placing bets with Drop. Tom leaves, telling Drop to tell Bernie to get in touch with him.Across town, a man walks up to the Sons of Erin club and tosses a bomb in the front window. The bomb goes off, throwing a dead and burned man out into the street. A police sergeant uses a bullhorn to order the rest of the club's occupants to surrender. When the first man walks out, he's promptly and cruelly shot by one of the mercenaries working for the police. A gunfight erupts. At the Mayor's office, Tom meets again with Casper and they discuss Bernie's and Mink's loyalties.Tom makes a phone call that night to Bernie. He tells Bernie about the body he'd seen in the woods: Bernie acknowledges that it's Mink Larouie and that he'd deliberately planted Mink's body there as insurance for Tom. Tom decides to call Bernie on his bluff of threatening to appear publicly to indict Tom. He tells Bernie to meet him at his apartment at 4 am with $2000.At Casper's house, Tom tries to convince Casper that Mink will be meeting him at his place at 4. However, The Dane is at Casper's and threatens to kill Tom for killing Mink and leaving him in the woods -- The Dane had captured Drop Johnson and had beaten the information out of him. As he prepares to choke Tom to death, Casper hits The Dane with a fireplace shovel and finishes him off with a shot in the head. Casper vows to kill Mink at Tom's place.Right before he walks home to meet with Bernie and Casper, Tom's stopped on the street by Verna. She threatens to kill him because she believes him responsible for the death of her brother. Verna can't shoot Tom and stalks off.Tom walks back to his apartment and tells Casper's driver to leave -- he'll drive Casper home himself. As Tom walks into his building, he hears a couple of shots. Walking up the stairs, he sees Casper's head protruding through the bannister on his floor. When he reaches the top, he finds Bernie, who'd shot Casper dead. He hands his pistol off to Tom looks through Casper's pockets, finding his wallet and pockets the cash in it. Tom tells Bernie they can lay the blame for Casper's murder on The Dane and asks for Bernie's pistol. He then tells Bernie they can't pin the shooting on the already dead Dane and that it'll have to be Bernie himself that takes the fall. Bernie is shocked and drops to his knees, pleading for his life. When he tells Tom to "look in your heart" Tom replies "What heart?" and shoots Bernie through the forehead. He takes Bernie's gun and lays it in Bernie's lap, doing likewise with Casper's gun and walks into his apartment. He calls Lazarre and tells him he has the money he owes him.A few days later, a small burial his held for Bernie. Verna is present; she takes a small scoop of dirt and indifferently throws it on Bernie's coffin in it's hole. Tom arrives and walks back to Leo's car with him. As they approach the car, it leaves abruptly, Verna having told the driver to leave without Leo and Tom. Leo pleads with Tom to return to his service, promising him anything he wants. Tom turns him down and Leo walks off. As Tom watches him go, he looks slyly in Leo's direction.

Tags: comedy, boring, neo noir, murder, dramatic, cult, violence, atmospheric, psychedelic, romantic, suspenseful, entertaining

Review:
In my opinion, Miller's crossing is easily the best of the Coen brothers' films, and one of the true classics of American cinema.On the surface, the story of warring gangsters in 1920's America is one that has been told many times before.
I'm talkin' about--hell Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word--ethics." So Jon Polito, as crime-boss Johnny "Caspar," describes to his overlord, Albert Finney as "Leo," his point of view while seeking permission to kill a double-crossing underling (played by John Turturro) in the opening lines of __Miller's Crossing__.
It portrays an earlier era in the nation's history of organized crime (perhaps Chicago in the late '20s), and one can imagine Leo as the Irish predecessor of __The Godfather__'s Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando).Just as __The Godfather__ was really about family relationships and the ethical complexities arising when familial loyalty collides with the business of violence, however, __Miller's Crossing__ is actually about, as Caspar tells us, friendship and character put under the enormous strain of that same business of violence.
Has he damned himself?Spectacular action sequences, beautiful production values, top-notch camera work by Barry Sonnenfeld, a haunting musical score, and the best dialogue ever written by the Coen brothers make this a great gangster film.
In my opinion, "Miller's crossing" is by far the top work of the Coen brothers, and one of the best movies in the history of cinema.
With this sober, brilliant, subtle performance, worth of a Bogart in great shape, Byrne just shows that he is the best actor in the world (my opinion, of course).The aged Irish boss O' Bannion - Albert Finney is the opposite of Reagan: naive, sometimes dumb, with a strong love and childish attachment for his girl-friend, he is confident only in his own charisma and in brutal force.
All this makes for an immensely challenging part, and the film could easily have fallen apart with a lesser actor than Gabriel Byrne playing the lead.But the acting is great from top to bottom: Marcia Gay Harden (in her big screen debut) as the hard-boiled moll; Jon Polito as the maniacal Johnny Caspar; Steve Buscemi as the hop-addicted Mink; J.E. Freeman, who is such a marvellous screen villain you have to wonder why he's still toiling in obscurity; and Albert Finney, an actor who embodies the term "screen presence." But the Grand Prix goes to John Turturro, who carries the most powerful scene in the movie: when Tom takes Bernie out to Miller's Crossing to "whack" him.Another criticism frequently levelled against the Coens is that they are preoccupied with "scenes" and don't focus enough on plot coherence.
In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of scenes that Tom Reagan (played masterfully by Gabriel Byrne) does NOT appear in.I won't go into great detail, because the story is full of subtleties...things that you won't notice even after seeing the movie several times.
The only way the Coen Brothers could pay greater homage to the old gangster classics would have been to have filmed Miller's Crossing in black and white...which they didn't need to do anyway, this film just can't be beat in it's set design and imagery.Oddly enough, there is almost no gratuitous sex in this mildly R-rated film...it's all implied, which is a nice touch given the way most R-rated films just give in to rampant sex and violence, just for the sake of being able to do it.
If you are sensitive to this disconnect, you may well dislike the movie, but if you are instead, longing for a complex plot, you may love it.I should note that as usual in a Coen brothers film, the dialog is a treat, but cannot fail to mention that unlike their better known work, you are likely to miss a good deal of it, as the sound quality is not high enough to decipher many a clever comment.All considered, the easiest way of looking at this film is to see it as an early effort, pointing to future greatness perhaps, but not a complete and developed masterpiece..
Gabriel Byrne plays Tom, Leo's (Albert Finney) right hand man and adviser who disagrees with his boss's decision to protect the conman brother (John Turturro) of his girlfriend Verna (Marcia Gay Harden) and must work his own wily methods to protect Leo from this decision.This is a masterpiece of modern film and definitely shows that the Cohen brothers can do anything with film.
It deals with a mysterious protagonist who sets a complex scheme in motion , Tom Reagan : Gabriel Byrne is the brain behind the throne of an Irish ganglord , Leo : Albert Finney, but at a violent war against another mobster ; John Polito, the latter begins falling out .
Meanwhile , there appears the girlfriend : Marcia Gay Harden stunts as the cunning woman who sleeps with Byrne and his boss , Finney , in hopes of a better life and protection for her small-time crook brother : John Turturro .Tom attempts to keep the peace an order between warring mobs , but things go wrong and he gets caught in divided loyalties.
Nothing is what it seems at Miller's Crossing.The faultlessly paced film is a really dark entry in the mobster genre , being crammed with suspense , menace , violence , turns , as well as sharp, witty dialogue and Byzantine plotting ; though , overlong , and hard to follow, at times .
However for me Jon Polito, a favourite of the Coens, just about runs away with the picture as the wise-cracking mob underboss Johnny Caspar, a tough talking and ambitious Italian who has become fed up of taking the scraps from Leo's table and launches his own bid for the crown as the town's head honcho.The film offers one of the most violent and memorable scenes in movie history when to the sweet theme of 'Danny Boy', two of Caspar's henchmen attempt to assassinate his now rival boss Leo at his home.
Tom unwittingly finds himself in the middle of the two mobsters doing his best to try and keep the peace (and more importantly stay alive).Miller's Crossing had an excellent sounding premise and has an impressive 5 star rating so therefore I fully expected that I would like it, but then again it is a Coen brothers film and I did wonder if the brothers would serve up yet another disappointment, and sadly, at least as far as I'm concerned they did...Let's begin with the positives; firstly, this film, like many Coen brothers films is exceptionally well-made; the camera work, editing, photography, costume and set-designs are flawless and it really is a handsome looking picture.
The principal cast are all excellent (especially Finney and Polito) and the Coen's have really gone to town to get the best out of their cast - the film has a real authenticity about it and all the actors look, sound and act like mobsters from the era so full credit to the Coens in all of these respects.
None of the characters have any real depth or development and are completely uninteresting and as a result of all of this I found the story dull and found that I didn't care about any of the characters - to be honest the film went round the houses so often that I forgot who was playing what character half the time - to me they were just names that were shouted out on the screen.With a more involving story and with stronger and deeper characterisation this would have been formidable, but as it is Miller's crossing is another rather mediocre entry for the Coen brothers which deserves credit for its technical greatness and strong acting performances, but loses a lot of points for its rather laborious and uninteresting story..
Many film classics through the years can leave you confused if you really dissect them afterwords.The story revolves around the central character Tommy (Gabriel Byrne), who is the right hand man to mob boss Leo (Albert Finney).
Casper of course leaves us with the immortal words....something he tells all his boys...."always put one in the brain".Gotta love it, and yes it was overshadowed by Goodfellas and other films when it was released, but like fine wine the classics always age well....and if you've never seen Millers Crossing I ENVY YOU, because you get the sheer joy of seeing a perfect film for the first time!.
Another in a long (at the time) line of gangster movies is a bit of counterfeit film noir, dressed up in the style of the late 1980s but taking its cues from the crime dramas of Hollywood's Golden Age. Up to a point the forgery works: Gabriel Byrne is a more effective lone wolf than Alan Ladd ever was, playing the proverbial man-in-the-middle when big boss Albert Finney initiates an obscurely motivated war against a rival gang.
But Miller's Crossing is a Coen brothers gangster film, which means expect the unexpected, and get ready to be surprised, weirded out and thinking about it for days after.
The cast is as good as it gets with amazing work from Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Albert Finney, and Jon Polito.
Capping the beautifully layered storyline is a barrage of wonderful performances from everyone, like Gabriel Byrne's wonderfully stone-faced performance, hiding himself under his facade; Marcia Gay Harden showing a different side of the traditional mob moll; John Turturro's wonderfully energetic performance; and, of course, Albert Finney brilliantly portraying Leo as not being a monster, but really being a tough but gentle man.A gleeful riff on a very old genre; the Coens make Miller's Crossing sing anew with wit, intensity, and irresistible black humor, thanks to a screenplay of pure gold.
It's easy to figure each one's motives, but the story gets more complex when it's revealed that Verna's heart belongs to Tom. That Bernie, John Turturro as the grifter who starts the whole situation is indeed a true sleaze-ball, and where some homosexual on-goings are revealed between Caspar's right hand, the towering and scary Eddie the Dane (J.E. Freeman) and a friend of Bernie played by Steve Buscemi.That's the thrilling set-up of a game of tactics and calculated double-crossings.
The second hour was more interesting though not brilliant, it began to get somewhat interesting from the time Byrne was asked to shoot Turturo his Jewish girlfriend's brother.The plot was muddled and hard to follow in many of its details while it lacked real depth and tension and many of the major characters came across as very cartoonish and wishy washy, Polito and Finney for example weren't at all convincing as authoritative top mafia bosses in their city though Byrne's character was quite satisfactory.The study of human reactions gave it some depth e.g the refusal of Byrne to shoot Turturo and the latter's behaviour towards the one who spared his life at enormous risk to himself.Overall a very mediocre film that's just about worth watching and while granting that in the subject of films personal tastes can differ enormously and one may find a film as being excellent and another as being totally dull I just can't understand why this film is considered as one of the greatest mafia films ever made.
Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito and John Turturro all do their part and the result is staggering in the way it demands complete attention from the audience not just to follow the plot, but also to contemplate and understand the motivation of these people.There is certainly more here than meets the eye, but that is the beauty of all the Coen's films.
Yet somehow it's always intriguing to watch, and one seems to get caught up in the action, as the outer conflict becomes a clear picture of the protagonist's inner conflict.Miller's Crossing is an interesting take on the "crime" genre that sets up Gabriel Byrne as the protagonist, playing Tom Reagan, a man who seems to have a kind heart and is caught between opposing sides.
An uncredited remake of "The Glass Key", the Coen Brothers' 1991 "Miller's Crossing" is in a number of ways an astounding film, (certainly one of the Coen Brothers' most tightly knit, narratively), full of black-humorous quirks, such as the marvelous set-piece of Albert Finney as the crime boss turning tables with a tommy-gun on would-be assassins in a car which he calmly follows on foot until at last the car crashes and explodes, while a classic rendition of "Danny Boy" plays over the soundtrack.The Coen Brothers' also take a minor scene from the Hammett text - where Ned Beaumont drunkenly gambles away his hat and then has to go hunting for it after he sobers up - and turn it into an over-arching metaphor for the emotional emptiness the anti-hero (marvelously played by Gabriel Byrne) struggles with throughout the narrative and which Hammett left as merely implicit.They also return the ethical bleakness to the finale, without actually duplicating Hammett's - now it is the crime boss who gets the girl and the anti-hero who is left to ponder the ruin of his friendship with his former boss.
Leo is also a gangster with ethics and principles, and keeps promises to protect people; again not a common gangster trait.But for all it's praiseworthy points, the story itself is a bit of a slow-burner; when compared to classic gangster films like The Godfather and Goodfellas, or even modern ones such as Road to Perdition, the story produces little adrenaline or excitement, and it is hard to become too wrapped up in the story and the plight of the characters.The Coen Brothers seem simply unable to produce a standard generic picture; everything they make always appears to be slightly off-kilter, and Miller's Crossing is no different.
Brilliant - the first sign of the Coen Brothers' genius for film- making.Tom Reagan (played by Gabriel Byrne) is the right-hand man, and chief adviser, to a mob boss, Leo (Albert Finney).
The other standout performance is John Turturro as Bernie - his under-pressure hysterics are something to behold.A wonderful modern film noir-type movie, and who better to do it than the Coen Brothers.
Tom goes to work for Caspar and he's commanded to execute Bernie in the woods at Miller's Crossing.It's the third big great movie from the Coen brothers and they show a real mastery of the cinematic arts.
Filled outstanding direction,a wonderful cast,an incredible flawless screenplay,amazing photography and a powerful score,Miller's Crossing is one of my favorite films and The Coen Brothers,Gangster Films Brothers,Gangster films and movie-making at it's best.Set during the Prohitbition era,Miller's Crossing tells the story of Tom Reagan(Gabriel Byrne),a adviser who works under Irish crime boss Leo(Albert Finney)and works as a guide for Leo. When a war with Italian Mob boss Johnny Casper(Jon Polito)starts to come to ahead,Tom is stuck in middle trying to stop the war between the two rival gangsters and has to deal with loyalty and death and Tom soon discovers that no one and nothing is what it seems.Miller's Crossing is an excellent and flawless masterpiece of cinema that was critically acclaimed by film critics but was basically ignored when it came out in the theaters in 1990.
With MC The Coens have given viewers a film where in the gangster world violence happens all the time,the main characters and their dialog are tough and cynical and the plot is very complex and big and characters can be loyal to you one minute and turn on you the next.
There is also a great use of the song Danny Boy(Sung by Frank Patterson)in a amazing,unforgettable classic scene.In final word,if you love The Coen Brothers,Gangster films,Film-Noir,Crime Dramas or cinema in general,I highly suggest you see Miller's Crossing,an unforgettable masterpiece of cinema that you will never forget and is a film that every film lover should have in their movie collection.
Take the most well-known Coen films such as 'The Big Lebowski,' 'Fargo,' and the recent 'Oh Brother;' remove the comedic aspects, creativity, and uniquely intriguing characters, and you'll have a good idea of what 'Miller's Crossing' is.
Millers Crossing is a terrific mobster movie.Can't compare it with The Godfather but this one's on the top of all gangster films.A mob film with a great intellect.Gabriel Byrne as Tom Ragen has done a fabulous job.I could think of him to replace Al Pacino in the Godfather & still he would have been at par with Pacino.A role perfect match to that of Al Pacino's Michael Carleone in Godfather.Marcia Gay Harden has given a decent enough performance as Verna.Jon Polito adds that little bit of satirical feeling thats always required in a mob movie otherwise it would become too dark of a film.The storyline is fabulous.Millers crossing,the place where lot of things happen.People often loose their morality there.You loose your morality or else you gain faith.Tom has to decide that at Millers crossing.Still i feel after seeing a lot of Coen brothers movie,this one's the best from them.And of course,Whats the rumpus.......
Not at all what I'd expected from a Coen brothers gangster movie, and with "Miller's Crossing", that's a virtue.
If you are a fan of the Coen brothers or the gangster genre then this film is worthy to be a part of your DVD collection and even if you're not Miller's Crossing is worth seeing..
Like any other good gangster film you have to watch the whole way through till the end especially Gabreil's trials and tribulations The Coen brothers are the best film making team and this is one of the examples why.
In fact, this could be my #1 Coen Brothers' movie if I were to rank them."Miller's Crossing" tells the story of two rival Mob bosses, Leo (Albert Finney) and Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) and Leo's most trusted adviser, Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne).
John Turturro, a Coen brothers' favorite, plays the weaselly Bernie to perfection- also one of his best films.