1.) MILLER’S CROSSING (1990) The Coen Brothers

The hat flies in the breeze, twisting and turning, ‘Like a Twist,’ and playing out as the perfect metaphor for what is about to transpire. Thus begins Miller’s Crossing, and just as the hat flies through the woods named Miller’s Crossing, during the opening credits, Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) flits to and fro, from one side of the gangster war to the other, leaving nothing but disaster in his wake.

In a year of one of the greatest gangster films of all-time (Goodfellas), The
Coen Brother’s Miller’s Crossing laid claim to the hearts and souls of many
cinephile’s, my heart being one. It was, and is, my favorite movie and started me on the path that has led to this moment. From the opening meeting between the late, great, Albert Finney and the late, great, Jon Polito until the final shot of Tom Reagan watching any semblance of love exit his life, Miller’s Crossing is a perfectly crafted film that gets better with subsequent viewings. Leo (Albert Finney) locks horns with Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) laying a tasty appetizer on the table for the full course meal to come. As a horrible business decision by Leo (to protect the amoral Bernie (a startling John Turturro) brother of his squeeze, Verna) leads him to the eventual brink of destruction; Tom Reagan, Leo’s right-hand man, tiptoes through the minefield of a burgeoning turf war. I’m sure I’ve seen other protagonists get their ass kicked as much as Tom does, but nothing comes to mind. Tom drinks all the time, gets beat up constantly and loses wager upon wager to add to his enormous gambling debt.

“How’d I do,” Reagan asks his friend, regarding the previous night’s
poker game, as he pukes in a toilet. “You’re a millionaire. You going to remember your friends,” the friend answers and asks, dripping with snark. Nearly nothing goes right for Tom. And still, he maneuvers with expertise through the morass of the murky mob world.

Leo loves Verna. Verna loves Tom and Tom… kinda loves Verna? That enigmatic love triangle leads to poor decisions, awkward partnerships, a gang war and, ultimately, a surprising gang victor. Along the way, we meet The Dane (the ice, cold JE Freeman) and Mink (first-timer Steve Buscemi) and as Tom bounces between rival gangs, the onion of the story is peeled. It’s done with a style and grace that the Coen’s would eventually use as their calling card.

This being their third film after Blood Simple and Raising Arizona,
Miller’s Crossing illustrated the full arsenal of ability of Joel and Ethan. Perhaps Fargo and No Country for Old Men are better films, but the directorial confidence shown in those two movies, stem from their leap of cinematic faith in Miller’s.

The acting performances by Turturro, Freeman, Harden and, of course, Finney, Polito and Byrne are so assured and on point and they are in direct relation to the confident direction of the Coen’s. The subtle touches (The Dane eluding a swing lamp shade in pursuit of Verna) mixed with dramatic flourishes (Turturro’s fantastic almost death scene in the woods) dot the film and add character to the flawless script.

I admit to being a Homer when it comes to the Coen Brothers. I wish they
released a movie every week. My favorite reviewer, Roger Ebert, wrote a telling thought regarding Blood Simple. “It tells a story in which every individual detail seems to make sense, and every individual choice seems logical, but the choices and details form a bewildering labyrinth in which there are times when even the murderers themselves don’t know who they are,” Ebert wrote.

In many ways, those words sum up Miller’s Crossing, but also, most other
Coen films. So many of their films are constructed with an elegant plot that twists and turns neatly to eventually arrive at a logical ending. As ‘The Dude’ is scurrying through Los Angeles, searching for Bunny in The Big Lebowski, we don’t recognize he’s playing the role of a true gumshoe, ala Sam Spade. Not until ‘Brother Shamus’ (again a terrific Jon Polito) applauds ‘The Dude’s’ playing off both sides against each other, do we realize we’ve been sucked into a film noir detective story. We’ve been suckered into a tale we weren’t expecting. That’s not to say the stories are simple, far from up, just finely crafted.

And so, it goes with Miller’s Crossing. As Tom folds into and out of
trouble, he weaves a web that will capture the spider we want, although there are no good guys in this tale. In the end, as Tom looks out into the woods of Miller’s Crossing, we realize that the hat flying, in the opening credits, represented optimism; optimism of where the hat may fly and what adventures may lie ahead.

But now, as Tom pulls the same hat over his eyes, he looks out into a world
without optimism, for where does a man go who has tossed everything he’s loved away. I’ll be damned, the Coen’s got me again.