Millers Crossing (1990)

This is my first review on this blog, and it is of the 1990 film Miller's Crossing, written and directed by the Coen Brothers. The film centers around a war between Irish and Italian-American gangsters in 1930's America. The main character, Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), is a lieutenant for the Irish, before switching sides to the Italians.

Tom's allegiances and, by extension, morals in gangster society is the crux of the film, as we see both sides of the war fought by the rivals and see distinctly different moral underpinnings for each side. The Irish set have a loyalty-based system which puts trust and friendship at the forefront, while the Italians have a code of ethics which they follow, with trust and friendship less important.

This is all set about from the brilliant opening monologue of Italian boss Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), which clearly shows where the key themes lie. This monologue,spoken to Irish boss Leo (Albert Finney), about whether he should be allowed to kill double-crossing underling Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) outlines the beliefs of the Italian gangsters, while the firmly negative response by Leo outlines the Irish stance.

The issue of trust and loyalty is further looked at in the romantic relationship between Tom and Verna (Marcia Gay Haden), who is also romantically linked with Leo. Tom's relationship is the key factor in forcing his hand into playing with the Italians until a fiendish manouver at the end.

The film is beautifully shot by Barry Sonnenfield, with some very good obscuring shots, particularly in a bedroom scene which has a suprising twist, and a really nice sense of place is put together, with the time period very obvious and well-shown.

The overall quality of acting is also superb with some great supporting performances, particularly a very small but important cameo by Steve Buscemi among the supporting performances, and Gabriel Byrne's lead performance.

This is a brilliant gangster movie, one which could easily go toe-to-toe with the Godfather in terms of storytelling and cinematography, though not necessarily in scope. A 5 out of 5 from me.