Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ANOTHER WINNER BY THE COEN BROTHERS..., 8 Dec 2002
This is a different kind of gangster flick. It is an intelligent foray into the world of the roaring twenties and the corruption and speakeasies engendered by Prohibition. This money making turf is zealously guarded by rival crime bosses: Leo, masterfully played by Albert Finney, and Johnny Caspar, well played by Jon Polito.Tom Reagan, beautiful played by the darkly smoldering Gabriel Byrne, is Leo's main man. Unfortunately for him, he is feeling the noose around his neck tighten, as he owes some big gambling debts that he is unable to pay. Moreover, he is head over heels in love with Verna, played with hard edged, sexual intensity by Marcia Gay Harden, who just happens to be Leo's main squeeze. Moreover, Verna's bookmaker brother, Bernie Bernbaum, played with smarmy abandon by John Turturro, has a contract on his life and is on the run. When Tom finds himself helping Bernie, he soon discovers that no good deed goes unpunished. All this makes life very complicated and difficult for Tom. At times, it is difficult to ascertain who the good guys and the bad guys really are, or for whom they really work, as they all seem to march to the beat of a different drummer. There is more to what is going on than initially meets the eye. Make no mistake, this is a multi-faceted movie that works well on many levels. As with all Coen brothers' films, there is an underlay of sly humor that permeates the film. The dialogue is sharp and evocative of another time, as it is laden with Prohibition era slang, and its stacatto delivery is most effective. The characters all walk the walk and talk the talk. The performances by the entire case are stellar. Look for Steve Buscemi in the small role of Mink, and do not blink or you will miss Frances McDormand's performance as Johnny Caspar's secretary. All in all, this is an excellent film and another feather in the collective cap of the Coen brothers.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gangsters plus the Coen Brothers - a classic combination, 8 Jan 2004
Made with more wit, character and style than a summers worth of holywood blockbusters, the Coen brotehrs cast their magic on the gangster movie.
The main events follow the path of an Irish-American gangsters (Albert Finney) 2nd in command (Gabriel Byrne) as he 'plays the angles' in a complex tale of love, loyalty and betrayal.
The much celebrated set piece with Albert Finney defending himself against a hit while listen to "Danny Boy" and dressed in a smoking jacket and slippers is entirely worth the praise.The cast is excllent with Gabriel Byrne portaying the seemingly cold and calculating Tom very convincingly without alienating the viewer and ultimately still able to express his feelings of pain and loss without getting all mushy or stepping out of character. The supporting cast is mostly excellent and never short of ok.
Coen brothers regular John Turturo is well cast as the sleazy, self serving bookie )ernie) who is the cause of everyones troubles and Steve Buscemi (Mink) has barely more than a cameo as another 'funny looking' guy.
The rival italian gang fronted by Jon Polito as Johnny Caspar and his 2nd in command 'the Dane' are both comedic and threatening. The fact that the Dane is almost certainly gay (though in no way camp) adds to the sense of real character while still maintaining the near surrealism of the Coens best work.
The weakest casting is of the gangsters mol, Verna (Marcia Harden) who probably isn't quite attractive or dangerous enough ,but maybe that's the point. Complex, quirky and compelling.
Watch it and be spellbound.. The DVD is largely devoid of extras, but frankly when a film is this good, who cares ?
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Verbose, darkly comic and visually energetic deconstruction of the gangster genre., 29 Feb 2008
As Blood Simple and Raising Arizona had previously done with the respective genre of film-noir and the screwball comedy, Miller's Crossing attempts to do with the American gangster film. Here, the Coen's aren't simply attempting to pastiche the style of Hollywood mob films of the 30's and 40's, but rather, create a customized deconstruction of every single narrative contrivance or characteristic prevalent in those films. Naturally, in keeping with the film's they'd made before (and those that they would go on to create throughout the subsequent decade) the various signs, themes and signifiers have been dusted off, stripped away and re-adapted with an equal amount of warm nostalgia and distancing post-modern irony, and then, finally, restructured with those trademark characters and idiosyncrasies that only the Coen brothers can really create.
The style of the film is trapped somewhere between the straight (though perhaps stylised in order to meet the requirement of the genre) reality of Blood Simple, with the over-the-top characters and set-pieces of Raising Arizona. On top of this, we also have the gorgeous noir-like cinematography of Barry Sonnenfeld, which draws on genre films of the 30's as well as more recent gangster pictures like The Godfather and Once Upon A Time in America (to quote the two most-obvious reference points). It also seems to predate the slick, "handsome" style of a film like Road To Perdition, with both films sharing that same colour-scheme of muted browns and autumnal reds, as well as the use of dramatic lighting, which here seems a little more "expressionistic" than most other mob/noir films of the last few decades. As well as the gorgeous style of both the cinematography and production design, there's also Carter Burwell's fantastic and evocative theme music (which was used in a long running Caffrey's commercial towards the end of the last decade; see also, The Hudsucker Proxy) and the standout performances from the excellent, ensemble cast.
Like much of the Coen's earlier works, the story, and indeed, the characters, are both wildly over-the-top and the actors seem to be having a great time imitating the Hollywood genre stalwarts of the 30's and 40's. Gabriel Byrne as the laconic Tom is the protagonist, the "man behind the man", who watches over his careless boss Leo, perfectly rendered by a stoic Albert Finney. There's also fine support from seasoned character actors and Coen regulars like J.E Freeman, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi and a career best John Turturro, all of which adds further layers of narrative tension, drama and strokes of broad, darkly comic humour to an already fantastic film.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Duff Coen
If you enjoy any of the following, you will enjoy millers crossing: death, emptiness, money, boredom, guns, depression, disgust, violence, apathy, assasination, war, greed,...
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Published 1 month ago by L. M. Betteridge
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