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Rating: Miller's Crossing is a woodland located near the cemetery.
Miller's Crossing is not just the place where mafia bosses have their enemies executed.
Miller's Crossing is also the place where people's fates can often reach a turning point.
Someone might dream of walking there, losing their hat, seeing it carried away by the wind, chasing after it, and once caught, it might have turned into something else. But Tom Reagan (a sumptuous Gabriel Byrne) doesn't have such dreams; he has other things to think about. Firstly, he has a significant debt to a dangerous bookmaker, and then he also needs to try and avoid a war between his boss Leo (Albert Finney), the boss of the Irish mafia, and Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), the ambitious and irascible head of the Italian mafia. The reason for the discord is Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro), a dishonest bookie, who is protected by Leo because he's in love with Bernie's sister Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), who is secretly dating Tom.
Complicated plot? Keep in mind that this is just the preamble of the story, which becomes more complex as minutes pass by. The viewer has to find the Ariadne's thread, especially in the first part, because the Coens don't simplify our work at all, catapulting us directly into the heart of the affair, throwing names in quick succession before the characters appear on scene, or sometimes not making them appear at all. Tom will have his work cut out for him to succeed in his endeavor, amid double and triple games, lies, deceptions, and half-truths, seasoned with a good number of machine gun bursts and cold-blooded executions.
But the crucial points of the plot, those that decide among others the fate of Tom and Bernie, take place in the place, not just physical but also internal, represented by Miller's Crossing.
Leaving behind the grotesque and camera tricks, the Coens direct one of their most sober and compact films (enhanced by spectacular settings, choice of lighting, and photography), and the most successful of their early career. Their postmodernism emerges from the numerous tributes (starting from the plot which is freely adapted from 2 novels by Dashiell Hammett) but revisited with their subversive soul, starting from the initial scene that echoes the opening of The Godfather: a mustached and chubby Italian-American asks a favor from a boss, but reversing the power relations, because Johnny Caspar is now a much more powerful boss than Leo. The overturning of stereotypes continues, for example, with the discovery that icy henchmen may be gay, and there are also comic scenes (Johnny Caspar's wife and chubby son are hilarious!).
What emerges is a world now on the brink, devoid of laws, where the characters' illusion of following an ethic, however distorted a mafioso gangster's may be, is so fragile that it's doomed to be swept away like a fedora at Miller's Crossing. The only one who can see beyond is Tom's character, who makes double-dealing, opportunism, and bluffing his life philosophy, managing to come out unscathed even from the most dangerous situations. However, all this comes at a high price, as he is doomed to solitude and imprisoned by his own condition, highlighted by Gabriel Byrne's almost expressionless and impenetrable but tremendously human face.
Crafting a work of this kind was exhausting even for the brothers, who experienced a dramatic moment of writer's block during the scriptwriting process, a theme that will inspire their next work.
A couple of curiosities: besides featuring a range of the Coens' aficionados actors (Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Jon Polito, John Turturro, the last three making their first appearance), a cameo is also performed by Sam Raimi, who returns the favor by giving a small role to the brothers in his Darkman, also released in 1990. Furthermore, it's amusing to note how Steve Buscemi's longtime Italian voice actor, Luca Del Fabbro, in this film instead voices John Turturro.
RATING = 8
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