director
Joel Coen
screenwriters
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
producers
Ethan Coen
cinematographer
Barry Sonnenfeld
music
Carter Burwell
editor
Michael R. Miller
cast
Gabriel Byrne (Tom Reagan)
Marcia Gay Harden (Verna Bernbaum)
John Turturro (Bernie Bernbaum)
Jon Polito (Johnny Caspar)
J.E. Freeman (Eddie Dane)
Albert Finney (Leo)
Mike Starr (Frankie)
Al Mancini (Tic-Tac)
Richard Woods (Mayor Levander)
Thomas Toner (Police Chief O'Doole)
Steve Buscemi (Mink)
Michael Jeter (Adolph)
Sam Raimi (Snickering Gunman)
Frances McDormand (Caspar's Secretary)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 115m
u.s.
release: September
22, 1990
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other coen
bros. films
reviewed on this website:
- barton
fink
- the
big lebowski
- blood
simple
- fargo
- the
hudsucker proxy
- intolerable
cruelty
- the
ladykillers
- the
man who wasn't there
- o
brother, where art thou?
- raising
arizona
|
Near
the end of Miller's Crossing, the hero, Tom Reagan (Gabriel
Byrne), walks down a hallway on his way to meet someone. (Never
mind who.) Tom has heard two gunshots; he knows there's going
to be trouble. The landlady stops him and says she, too, heard
gunfire. He nods, telling her to go to the drugstore and call
the police. Putting on a robe, she starts to leave, then stops
and asks Tom, "Will my cats be all right?" "They'll
be fine," Tom says.
That's the sort of exchange we've come to expect from Joel and
Ethan Coen (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona): incongruous
humanity in the midst of chaos. As usual, Joel directed, Ethan
produced, and they cowrote the script, which is highly convoluted,
bristling with quirky dialogue ("If Caspar ain't a stiff
soon, I'm gonna start eating in restaurants"), and obsessed
with tommy-guns, trees, and hats. A lot of the details and asides
in Miller's Crossing appear to be there for their own
sweet sake -- as if the Coens have wanted for a long time to
capture such images as a hat tossed around by a breeze, or a
street urchin swiping a dead man's toupee. The images have a
talismanic, almost fetishistic quality; they have their own dream
logic.
Miller's Crossing (named for a remote woodsy area where
men are taken to die) unfolds in the late '20s in some unidentified
city -- really, it's The City, the idea of a prohibition-era
town. Everything is run by Leo (Albert Finney), a powerful mob
boss; Tom, the aforementioned hero, is his right-hand man. Both
are in love with Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), a vamp whose brother
Bernie (John Turturro), a double-dealing grifter, has run afoul
of rival mobster Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), who wants Bernie
dead. Verna would like Bernie protected. Tom doesn't care much
either way, or he wouldn't if Verna weren't so keen on preserving
Bernie's hide. With all these tough guys (including Verna, who
packs an eye-watering punch) buzzing around the fate of Bernie,
a gang war erupts.
The movie has an authentic Irish melancholy; with its green,
green design and mournful soundtrack by Carter Burwell, it might
become a St. Patrick's Day perennial. It begins with a parody
of The Godfather's first scene, with the oily Johnny Caspar
(Polito works DeVito-like magic in the role) holding forth about
"et'ics." Little do we know from this deadpan-farcical
opener that Miller's Crossing will actually evolve into
a serious inquiry into ethics. As elaborately structured by the
Coens, this is a movie that demands and rewards repeat viewings.
We see Tom doing things that seem self-destructive or downright
stupid, but he's following his own blueprint to restore order
to his drizzly corner of the world. Can any man be this smart?
Tom almost seems to have read the screenplay. He is, in effect,
a cipher, the author of this story, the invisible puppetmaster.
He also gets beat up a lot (and never bleeds). There's an element
of the uncanny mixed in with this world of gin and heavy trenchcoats
and unfiltered Luckies.
Miller's Crossing is a grab bag of classic moments. The
obvious one is the extended scene in which Tom leads the hysterical
Bernie through the chilly woods of Miller's Crossing; Turturro's
anguished performance brings you right inside Bernie's terror
and imprints the scene in your mind. Then there's the show-stopper
when two gunmen come to Leo's house to kill him and he turns
the tables in a triumphantly feral burst of violence. The movie
certainly doesn't shy away from the high notes. The violence,
when it comes, is usually outrageously stylized, as in a Jacobean
revenge drama. Yet the Coens also score with quiet moments: Tom's
musing about his odd dream of the floating hat; his combative,
familiar rapport with Verna (played with cat-like sultriness
by newcomer Harden); Caspar's scenes with his dimwit little son;
J.E. Freeman as the city's bitchiest hit man, who sits around
sneering at everyone -- he's the dark corner of every room.
Is the movie a sheer exercise in style? Partly; the Coens luxuriate
in the set design, the snappy patter, the weighty retro-ness
of the fictional city. But it's also about the great pulp theme:
Actions have consequences. Tom is just sharp enough to see the
consequences and manipulate them with his actions. None of which
helps him when he himself is guided through the barren trees
at Miller's Crossing. The bleak foliage mocks him, as it mocked
Bernie and all the other unlucky men led to their certain dooms.
When Tom dreams of his hat floating away, it's floating through
the leaves on the dirt floor of Miller's Crossing. "It's
a mental state," says Johnny Caspar in another context,
and the more you think about the place -- the lives and humanity
lost among those trees -- the more Caspar's words resonate. "There's
nothing more ridiculous than a man chasing his hat," Tom
mutters, and in the world of Miller's Crossing, there's
nothing more ridiculous than a man chasing his compassion in
a place that values shrewdness more than kindness. In the end,
the Coens pay tribute to both. |