Film review by Marc

Film Title: Miller's Crossing
Country/Year: USA 1990
Genre: Crime / Drama
Director: Joel Cohen
Writing Credits: Joel & Ethan Cohen
Original soundtrack: Carter Burwell

Cast:

Grabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, Albert Finney as Liam 'Leo' O'Bannon, John Polito as Johnny Caspar, Marcia Gay Harden as Verna Bernbaum and John Turturro as Bernie Bernbaum.

Synopsis :

The action takes place in an unnamed city in 1929, during the dry law, and deals with the war between the Irish and the Italian clans, represented by Leo (the chief of the city) and Caspar (the applicant for Leo's place) respectively. Our main character is Tom Reagan, Leo's right hand.

The action starts when Caspar ask to Leo for permission to kill Bernie, a squealer who is selling to other gamblers the result of Caspar's fixed fights. Leo denies it, as Bernie is Verna's brother and Verna is Leo's girlfriend. Even when Tom tells him, Leo doesn't want to see why Verna (much younger than him) is with him, just to protect her brother.
Dying to overthrow Leo, Caspar begins the war striking first, trying to kill Leo, but their men fail. Again, Tom tries to show Leo that to provoke a war for such a sponger makes no sense, and finally confesses that he and Verna are seeing each other in hope he will open his eyes.
Tom is shacked, but then tries to join Caspar gang, who first ask him to tell where Bernie is and to kill him, in a proof of his loyalty.

Every little detail and scene is capital to understand the plot, and you must see it twice to get the whole story.

Language used:

For this film the brothers invented a kind of gangster tongue that you just understand, being the clearest example"What's the rumpus?" which means "What's up?". This adds a unique mark to the film, but doesn't make harder to understand the dialogues once you get used to.
Besides it, also contains the usual crime movies slang.


Opinion:

The movie begins with a tribute scene to 'The Godfather' that tells what all this is about, an homage to all the classic crime films (mainly those from the '30s and '40s), a really good one.
As those, it has strong dialogues, a complex and solid script and music from those days (and a wonderful original soundtrack as well). They are all here, but also that ironic mood that peppers the whole history.

They (the Cohen brothers) are not trying to innovate, but to deliver "A handsome movie about men in hats", as Barry Sonnenfeld (the cinematographer) tells us in the DVD interview, and for sure that they achieve that goal. By the way, he does a great job, being the very best the shots from miller's crossing (the place in the forest where the gangsters like to go to shot their problems).

To sum it up, Miller's Crossing is Cohen brother's at their best (and that's a lot), great plot with an unbelievable ending, great performances (Grabiel Byrne is terrific), wonderful music and the feeling that more movies should be like this, like they used to be.

Have to say I'd loved it?

1-10 Score:
10