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Miller's Crossing 
Actors : Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito, J.E. Freeman
Director : Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Studio : 20th Century Fox
by 20th Century Fox
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Release Date : 2003-05-20
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 0024543073833
UPC : 024543073833
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 224 reviews)
List Price : $9.98
Our Price : $3.27
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Product Description |
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Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (Barton Fink Fargo) create a complex and graphic vision of gangsterism set during Prohibition and featuring a riveting rouges' gallery of killers and con men.Leo (Albert Finney) a likeable Irish gangster boss rules an Eastern city along with Tom (Gabriel Byrne) his trusted lieutenant and counselor. But just as their authority is challenged by an Italian underboss (J.E. Freeman) Leo and Tom also fall for the same woman. Tom caught in the jaws of a gangland power struggle walks a deadly tightrope as he tries to control and manipulate its violent outcomes.System Requirements:Starring: Albert Finney Gabriel Byrne John Turturro Jon Polito Marcia Gay Harden J.E. Freeman. Directed By: Joel & Ethan Coen. Running Time: 115 Min. Color. Copyright 2003 Twentieth Century Fox.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543073833 Manufacturer No: 2007383 |
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Americancivilwar.com essential video |
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Arguably the best film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the 1990 Miller's Crossing stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom, a loyal lieutenant of a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney) who is in a Prohibition-era turf war with his major rival, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). A man of principle, Tom nevertheless is romantically involved with Leo's lover (Marcia Gay Harden), whose screwy brother (John Turturro) escapes a hit ordered by Caspar only to become Tom's problem. Making matters worse, Tom has outstanding gambling debts he can't pay, which keeps him in regular touch with a punishing enforcer. With all the energy the Coens put into their films, and all their focused appreciation of genre conventions and rules, and all their efforts to turn their movies into ironic appreciations of archetypes in American fiction, they never got their formula so right as with Miller's Crossing. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right. --Tom Keogh |
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Miller's Crossing - a Coen Classic |
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Enchanting, haunting, unnerving and just good ole Coen Brothers' dialogue. Beautiful photography by Barry Sonnenfeld and great acting all around. This movie not surprisingly becomes more enjoyable with every viewing and is definitely worth owning! |
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One of the All-Time Great Gangster Films |
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If you haven't seen this film, you've missed one of the best gangster flicks of all time ! The story-line has more twists and turns than a roller-coaster and some of the best scenes and dialouge you'll find. Outstanding performances by Gabriel Byrne (Tom), Albert Finney (Leo), Marcia Gay Harden & John Tuturro. If you can figure out where this one's going to end more than 15 minutes before the actual ending, I'll eat my hat !!! This is one of those movies you'll be talking about with your friends for days afterward (and repeating lines from the movie too). One of my favorite movies of the last 20 years (1990). |
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Kind of a bloody gangster film |
In the 20's the Irish still ran things in some east coast cities.
It wasn't any cleaner or easier. Fights, gambling whores and booze were
big. Always one boss wants it all. There is always the girl that
you shouldn't mess with, but did. The hero here is a plainly an
anti-hero.
Most everybody ends up dead. The difference today is that
fully automatic weapons aren't as easy to get and drugs and martial arts
have changed how people got shot or beat up or are killed.
The minority groups have shifted, the language has changed, the music
is different, but the situations and the deaths remain. |
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Now there will be peace in this town...... |
"Miller's Crossing" is yet ANOTHER interpolation of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" (the other being "Last Man Standing", with Bruce Willis). The Coen brothers, however, did a fine job of "tweaking" the story to fit 1920's America. The sets, wardrobe, hardware and accoutrements come right out of the gangster period.
The Actors put forth first-rate performances, as well. Of special note are Albert Finney and John Turturro. Finney for the most memorable scene of standing in the middle of a residential street, emptying the drum of a Thompson Submachine gun at the car of men who were sent to assassinate him in his own home. Turturro for playing Marcia Gay Harden's oily, smarmy, double dealing brother, that makes himself out to be someone you just love to hate!
This film, like "The Untouchables", was convincing in it's portrayal of that violent period of American History. So it plays fast-and-loose with Akira Kurosawa's work, but it is a thrilling drama, nonetheless. |
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Quirky Heartless Story of Quirky Heartless Characters |
This is not a great movie.
I watched The Coen Brothers Movie Collection (Fargo / Miller's Crossing / Barton Fink / Raising Arizona / Blood Simple) Blood Simple for the first time a few weeks ago and really enjoyed watching Francis McDermott. She was fantastic in Fargo. Fargo was a great movie with all the right moves, excellent tone, bizarre characters, and a flatly affected but very strong pregnant cop played by McDermott. The Coen brothers are known for their slightly off-kilter films. Raising Arizona with Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter was a very successful and entertaining quirky movie. Strange characters and bizarre situations can be very entertaining. The formula just doesn't work in Miller's Crossing.
Garbrial Byrne stars as a dirtball gangster. He's the slimey no. 2 to Albert Finney in Finney's massive gangster world. Finney is the real power in this mystery city and Byrne's authority and power comes from only the fact that he has Finney's confidence. Finney is the star of the movie for me. In this unnamed city, the mayor and the police chief are in his pocket until his rival "goes to war" with his gang and starts to get the upper hand. Byrne is having a "liaison" with Albert Finney's galpal played ably by Marcia Gay Harden. Byrne is Finney's second in command, so his choice of girlfriend is highly questionable. Over the course of the convoluted plot and where dirtbags of all stripes show up and do their thing, Byrne is forced to kill a man to show his new pals that he is not a mole or traitor. Well, Byrne has a little itty bitty heart and lets the pathetic victim go so long as he disappears from town. The intended victim is his girlfriend's brother so it makes sense not to whack him.
Byrne makes his way between the two warring gangs all the while trying to get some money to pay off his gambling debts. It's all really quite silly and meaningless. There are lots of false deep moments with characters pretending to have souls and more than one layer to their shallow characters but they can't quite pull it off. This is a movie populated with characters who are all essentially the same, completely corrupt-- with little or no ethics or care for anybody else but themselves.
The main problem with quirky films is that they so often end badly. What I mean is that the filmmakers don't quite know how to conclude the story or they purposefully leave the ending obscure just so they can retain their "quirky" reputations.
Why is it seen as something of a failure in modern hollywood films to properly conclude a story? At one time, this was considered the mark of a well-constructed story-- one that has a beginning, middle, and end. Some "artists" apparently find the concept unfulfilling and perhaps even a bit constricting-- well, I want a proper ending to my stories! Why should the audience have to make up their own endings? It's just lazy story-telling disquised as avant-garde "art".
The ending in this movie was completely frustrating. Nothing was wrapped up for the main characters (except those that got whacked) and what seems like a perfectly reasonable option presented to Byrne at the closing is rejected by him for no apparent reason. Finney's character doesn't quite understand the ending and neither do I. But Byrne is apparently motivated by other character traits that unfortunately nobody in the audience knows anything about.
Folks in this movie don't learn alot, and don't change alot. It's just another "slice of life" in this particular weird, bizarro Coen brothers world.
The film is beautiful to watch with lush dark colors everywhere. Everybody is wan and pale and even the scenery is washed out. The direction is excellent and the pacing fine. The performances are all adequate or better, but it's just not enough. The dialogue is stilted and terse. Albert Finney owns this movie and so does Marcia Gay Harden.
Essentially, this approach to filmmaking and story telling is a treat for the filmmakers but a frustration for the audience. At the end of the movie I want to know what happens next, I want the storyline concluded, and I don't want to waste my time guessing and speculating about what happens to the characters after the credits because I really just don't care enough about the film or the shallow one or two dimensional characters to waste my time on the exercise. |
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