Poll Position: Miller's Crossing (1990)

Last week I decided to make the poll focused around the actor John Turturro since I was so impressed with his performance in The Good Shepard. The tricky part is that he's not exactly a leading man in many films. While there were a few that had him in the starring role, the winner was the Coen Brother's film Miller's Crossing. Personally, I was rooting for Barton Fink to win, but it only got 1 little vote, and it wasn't even mine. The runner up was Clockers, so maybe it'll have another chance some day. In the meantime, I watched this 40's era gangster movie starring Gabriel Byrne. More after the jump.


The story here is a basic gangster story. There are rival factions vying for power, love triangles, back stabs, gambling, bought cops and execution killings. It's all triggered by a single man being killed and assumptions start to fly. While I thought it would be a big mystery as to who killed that guy, it's generally just brushed over after only a few thoughts. The reason being is that in the world of gangsters, you don't have time to worry about who did it, you just strike back and then watch your tail. Always have a gun handy and you'll pretty much be OK. We follow Tom Reagan, played by Gabriel Byrne, who is the right hand man to Leo. Leo, played very well by Albert Finney, runs the town (at the moment) and as it starts to hit the fan, we follow Tom as he navigates his way through the chaos of the warring factions.

Miller's Crossing was a good movie. I'll say that right now, because I'm kinda going to poke at it a bit with things I didn't really like. But they're small things, and you need to know that even taking those into account, this is a good movie. No question.

Turturro plays the sniveling Bernie Bernbaum, the brother to Tom's lover

The first thing I was a little disappointed about was who the mystery of what really happened was totally just pushed a side. I really thought there would be this interesting investigation that maybe Tom Reagan would do while still trying to do his job or whatever. It seemed to start like that, but really all it is, is Tom making crap up to try and position himself into a better place.

I was never really clear what Tom's objective was. He was always trying to manipulate people, which he did extremely well, but other than avoiding getting himself killed, he doesn't really accomplish anything for himself. It's hard to explain what I mean without talking at length on spoilerish topics, so you'll just have to take my word that this is how I felt about it.

Even though my wishes didn't come true in the movie, what happened in it's place was still pretty cool. I've heard critics refer to this movie as a sort of mash-up of all gangster movies ever made and coming out with the most firmly centered film for that genre. I can see what they mean by that. The language, and atmosphere, the characters, the situations all scream "gangster" in all the best ways.

No one messes with Leo

Lastly I want to mention the two scenes that I liked the most. First there was the scene with John Turturro, who didn't let me down, as he is walked out into the woods at Miller's Crossing by Tom to be executed for being a rat. I felt John was extremely good here, and he really brought his character Bernie Bernbaum to energetic life in all the scenes he was in. In fact all the characters had a very specific way of acting, and they were all just different enough to be totally unique. The other scene was when 2 hit men come to Leo's house to take him out. He's just sitting in his bed with the newspaper, listening to extremely loud Irish music. You couldn't get more stereotypical a hit scene if you tried. The cool thing was that it didn't go down like a usual hit in these situations, and it just proved how much of a badass Leo really was. No wonder he ran this town!

While I was hoping to see a movie that had more Turturro in it from the poll, this was definitely a good movie too, even though he was just a side character. The rest of the cast did a decent job, there were even some good moments from the side characters, such as the thug in the woods who sings opera as they walk. Miller's Crossing is a good mob movie that hits a lot of right notes. I don't think it's the best movie of it's type that I've ever seen, but it is still really good.