1990 / 115 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

“The Godfather” does a good job of portraying The Mafia as a large, corrupt extended family. In “Miller’s Crossing”, The Coens paint the mob as nothing more than a business. Corrupt and back-biting, but a business all the same.

Gabriel Byrne portrays Tom, a man who is true to the mob boss he serves. He is true to the man, but that does not mean that he agrees with every strategy the man proposes. One of the Italians paying Tom’s employer for protection is having a problem with another of the men paying him for protection and wants him rubbed out. There’s only one problem: the man who the Italian wants rubbed out is brother of the mob boss’s girlfriend. If he murders this man, he loses his girlfriend. If he does not murder the man, he loses the allegiance of one of his most powerful underlings, a man who is already looking for a reason to go on his own.

Tom believes that the man should be murdered. He even goes so far as to suggest that the boss’s girlfriend is not all that true to him. Tom should know. After all, Tom is screwing her as well.

From here, as in any Coen film, the plot gets more complicated. It’s complex and involves many characters, but it is tightly paced and, if you pay attention, there should be no trouble in following it. Each of the characters is instantly distinguishable from the others. The plot pays off in a multitude of thrilling ways and the scenes of mob action and extermination (as well as several shootouts with the police) are more involving and excitingly filmed than most of the set pieces of the “Godfather” films.

Another great thing: the movie makes no bones about rousing our sympathies for these characters. These are not noble men. They are, by and large, soulless slime. Tom even wrestles with the fact that he may be a soulless creature and that his motivations may not be the purest. In fact, he doesn’t quite know what it is that motivates him. He changes allegiances the way some men change socks, but he always has a motivation that keeps him on a single course of action. He is a very intriguing character, and more of the sort that would work for the mob than most we are shown in gangster films. Whatever else he may be, he is not an overly good man. Gabriel Byrne plays him magnificently, revealing new layers of this deeply flawed man as the movie progresses.

I don’t know about you, but I found all this very intriguing. The costumes and sets are top notch, giving a sheen of gangster decadence to the proceedings without reveling in it. The violence is sudden, shocking and exciting all at once. The cinematography is gorgeous and perfectly suited to every scene, and the editing transitions are quite clever and serve a point. Often, the editing adds to the potency of the action onscreen.

All in all, this is quite a piece of work, and one of the best gangster films I have ever seen. Most of the times, I am not a big fan of gangster movies. I admired the “Godfather” films for the skill of their craft, but they did not involve me as deeply as they did most other people. I found them to be a bit bloated and too important for their own good, even if they are excellent pieces of cinema.

“Miller’s Crossing”, however, is the sort of film I could just eat up with a spoon.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 20th, 2002 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.