Review of Miller's Crossing (1990) by Mark P — 11 Jun 2009

The Coen brothers are Masters! You can take that to the bank! Once again they fail to dissapoint and they deliver one hell of an amazing masterpiece! This story is about the mob of New York in the late 20's.

The main character, Tom(Gabriel Bryne), is the advisor of the most powerful irish crime boss of the city(Albert Finney). But soon their friendship is going to fall apart because of a woman(Marcia Gay Harden).

Because of that and due to his large debts he goes to the other side offering his services to the only competitor of his ex-boss(Jon Polito). I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot because this is one of these plots that have an amazing and magical way to fall into place.

You will find yourself almost in any place taken by surprise. The film blends two film genres. The gangster epic and the noir film. This along with a big amount of the Coen style leads to something that you'll hardly ever see again.

As I already mentioned the Coen stamp is everywhere. The camera angles and all the wonderful settings say so and so does the script. The characters are unique with Jon Polito's and John Turturro's standing out.

I think it's great that the Coen brothers gave Polito a leading role because so far I've seen him in their movies playing small roles that were not very good in showing the full extent of his talent.

This really is an excellent acted film but I find hard not to mention that Polito and Turturro were a lot better than the rest, taking their character to a really great level. Another thing that makes this film stand out is how the human side of the gangsters is shown.

Usually in gangster epics the main character is so smarter, stronger and in general better than the rest (except maybe for the main antagonist) that it ends being a little bit unfair for the other's.

This isn't the case here though because Tom is for the whole duration of the movie walking on a tight rope and luck really plays a significant role to his action and saving his ass. The main antagonist here(J.

E. Freeman) is really way smarter than him and also a few more characters put him in really tight situations. So in conclusion what we get here is a witty Coen brothers film, an amazing gangster epic and romantic drama.

You really can't get much better than this.