Review of Miller's Crossing (1990) by Tom B — 18 Jun 2010

Probably as close to perfection as a movie can get. Certainly one of the best movies ever made. Rewards you again and again for paying attention, no matter where you decide to focus your mind. You can drift along with the characters and the things that happen to them, you can bury yourself with the suggestions of complex hidden meanings, you can goggle at the beautiful images, or you can relax and enjoy the action. You can even just enjoy the jokes and all the beautiful wardrobe and props.

So many things have to go right for a complex mobster movie to feel fresh and fluid, especially if it's set decades before the time of filming. All of those things went right in the making of this movie, and they seem to have just gotten lucky on top of it and gotten everything to work out just the way they wanted.

Not too many movies stand up to viewing after viewing after viewing the way this one does. Even with so many moments that are kind of silly and overdone, just ripe spoofs of some of the cliched moments of classic gangster films, you still get fully sucked in and it never lets you go. There's something about the Coen brothers' style that allows them to get away with making fun of moments you've seen a million times in movies, or even replay them without making fun of them, while they still keep you rooted in the characters and action you're watching now.

They're always layering so much into every scene--you're getting to know the character, you're reacting to some interesting dialogue, you're catching crucial information about the plot, and probably seeing some beautifully composed shot all at the same time. As the shot unfolds, you realize the actors have to hit their marks exactly for the composition to hold together, while at the same time, you're keeping track of action and reaction. To add a comment on film history just deepens the events onscreen. When you're already layers deep, adding more just intensifies the complexity, rather than distracting.

There's not much to say about the elements of the plot itself that wouldn't spoil the fun of watching it all unspool. A dozen great actors offer work that's as good as anything they've ever done, they follow a plot that carries you along and holds together beautifully, the dialogue is eminently quotable. Gangster movies are a love it or hate it genre for so many people, but there's nothing else that even comes close to what the Coens did here. Coppola on his best day wishes the Godfather had what this movie has.