Miller’s Crossing

August 6, 2006

Rated: R Runtime: 115 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Miller’s Crossing was the third movie made by the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, the duo that had previously brought us Blood Simple and Raising Arizona. If you ask a movie buff to name off the Coen brothers’ works, however, they will quite often forget to mention this one. Why has it flown under the radar all these years? That’s the question I set out to answer when I sat down to watch it recently.

Miller's Crossing The movie stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the right-hand man of irish gangster Leo O’Bannon (Finney). Leo has the city in his back pocket…almost literally. How tight IS his grip, you ask? The mayor and the chief of police are both sitting in HIS office in one scene and taking their orders with their hats in their hands. Things are running very smoothly for ol’ Tom and Leo. Smooth, that is, until an upstart Italian mobster named Johnny Caspar (Polito) starts moving in on Leo’s turf. That’s when it all goes to hell in a handbasket. And, of course, the obligatory “dame” (Harden) waltzes into the picture to REALLY screw things up.

All in all, it’s a well made movie, but I find it hard to recommend it. “Why is that?,” you might ask. Well, let me see if I can explain it. When an artist sits down to paint something of beauty, he will study the subject matter and, as he paints, he interprets what he sees, removing blemishes and ugliness, and leaves nothing but beauty on the canvas. Now you might be wondering what the hell this has to do with this movie review, but please bear with me a bit more.

When a director films a period piece, he does much the same as a painter. He takes his subject matter, filters out all the old and irrelevent elements, and creates a modern homage to something that is considered to be classic.

Unfortunately, that’s not what Joel and Ethan Coen did with Miller’s Crossing. Oh, as usual, they did a great job with the casting and the performances are just fine. As well, they did fine work with regards to the look and feel of city and the people that dwell in it. But what should have been a modern interpretation of the classic gangster film of the 30’s is, instead, a carbon copy of one. All the stuff you love about gangster movies is in there, but so is all the stuff you can’t stand about them.

To wit, all the characters are extremely two dimensional and seem more to represent archetypes instead of a real persons. How can you care what happens to a character if they seem more like a cartoon than flesh and blood?

And the dialogue…ugh! I mean, sure, sprinkle some of the old jargon in to preserve the flavor of the era and pay the proper respect, but don’t go overboard with it. Maybe you don’t agree with me, but that’s tough. But that’s the way Alex likes things, see?!? And if any of you mooks got a problem with my opinion, then gettin’ the high hat will be the least of yer problems, see? You’ll all end up with fat lips for your trouble. Some of yas will end up coolin’ on a slab at the morgue with the rest of the stiffs, see?!? You ain’t got no license to talk back and today I ain’t sellin’. So take yer flunky and dangle!

See what I mean? That just gets old after a while. Really old. And if all this wasn’t bad enough, remember those old shootouts from the movies of old where a poor schmuck gets riddled with bullets, involuntarily squeezes the trigger of his machine gun, and jerks around for a few seconds before falling? Yep, you even get that here. One guy starts getting hit with a tommy gun and proceeds to do the epileptic version of The Macarena, all the while firing all the rounds from HIS tommy gun into the air. He takes about 60 rounds to the chest over a period of about 30 seconds before he finally collapses. I actually burst out laughing by the end of that one. Somehow I don’t think it was intended to be funny.

Anyways, y’all get the idea by now. Take one old movie gumshoe’s opinion…or don’t. This one gets a weak three stars from me.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Albert Finney, DVD, Drama, Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro, Jon Polito, Marcia Gay Harden, R