Miller's Crossing
Submitted by Reviewer (not verified) on 5 October, 2005 - 20:13.
Movie Reviews
| 20th Century Fox: Miller's Crossing |
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| Made | 20th Century Fox | | Date | 2003-05-20 | | Media | DVD | | Catalog | DVD | | Sales Rank | 4414 | | Audience Rating | R (Restricted) | | Director | Array | | Theatrical Release Date | 1990-10-01 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | List Price | US$14.98 | | Our Price* | US$10.99 |
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Reviews:| Rating 4.5/5 from 199 reviews | | the last reviewer is right. Everything that this person hates about the movie I loved | | Rating: 4/5 2006-07-22 | The gangsters in this movie are not supposed to sound or be acting authentic. The characters are supposed to be fun and the voices were just awesome. This is my favorite role from Gabriel Byrne. The way he has no cares about anybody but himself was very interesting to watch. There are a few plots here going on that all come together for a rather unspectacular ending, but this was still a great movie.
So we have superb acting performances by some of the greatest actors ever. Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro, Steve Buschemi....
I didn't think it was one of Marcia Gay Harden's best performances, but still a very solid job. Now the reason that this movie will always be remembered by me is J.E Freeman. His acting job playing "The Dane" was the performance of the century.
The cast interviews are pretty good. Movie is widescreened and sound is not 5.1 but still pretty good. | | Laugh Out Loud Bad | | Rating: 1/5 2006-07-05 | Take Hammett's "The Glass Key" (and be sure not to credit it), muck it up with pointless violence, mix with stilted, often inane dialogue which would not be out of place in a comic book, stir in over-the-top ham acting by just about everyone, add cartoonish, cliched scene setup and direction and you've got "Miller's Crossing", the most unintentionally hilarious gangster movie I ever saw.
Was there a script? Did the actors ever see it? Is this all improv?
Were he not dead, I would have suspected the immortal Ed Wood Jr. of having directed this film! Then again...
A marvel of directorial ineptitude, this a "must see" comedy experience!
| | A homey, circumscribed and excellent little movie | | Rating: 5/5 (2 out of 2 think this is helpful) 2006-05-23 | Miller's Crossing has a fairy-tale quality about it. Within the homey and narrow scope of what it's doing, it succeeds superbly. The character work and cinematography are outstanding, and the music is an integral element, too.
The story is circumscribed and without overt interest in seeking to move you very deeply but it is neither distant nor dry or cold, either. On first viewing, it strongly led me to view it a second time to catch the threads and dialogue I knew were there but missed on the first run through.
Of all the Coens' work, only "Brother, Where Art Thou" comes close, almost. TIME Magazine's "All Time 100 Best Films" list (drawn up by Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss) has Miller's Crossing in its ranks, but nary a Fargo to be found. Certainly the two gents had to negotiate their pick, and it was Miller's Crossing that they chose.
My favorite little nugget is when Tom gets roughed up in the warehouse, and I'm certain you can hear the brief sound of whooping and hollering Indians on thundering horseback as he goes unconscious.
I absolutely love Miller's Crossing, and I want me' hat, too. | | Dashiell Hammett meets the Cohen Brothers | | Rating: 5/5 (2 out of 2 think this is helpful) 2006-04-17 | Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest" and "The Glass Key" get the lush treatment from the Coen brothers as those two books get conflated into a tightly knit plot.
Unlike "Fargo", this is a beautifully shot movie, it is far more quotable, a million times more memorable and the acting is every bit on par with Mace and Macdormand's in their better known, yet inferior picture.
To say too much about the movie's plot would be to give too much away (if you've ever read Dashiell Hammett you know exactly what I'm talking about). | | okay but anymore than 3 stars and you must be mentally retarded. | | Rating: 3/5 (1 out of 23 think this is helpful) 2006-03-28 | | masterpiece? i dont think so. when i think masterpiece i think of the godfather, fargo, and bats. maybe even freaked. yes totally freaked. thats a good movie go buy that film, not this. this is not that good. i liked the part where the old guy jumps from the window and for about 20 minutes shoots that other guy from the ground for about 20 minutes. and then he shoots the car and then a tree. hmmmmm sound like a movie you wanna watch? i do i think ill watch it again. |
Editorials:Amazon.com essential videoArguably 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
DescriptionLeo is the benevolent Irish gangster and political boss who rules an Easter city with the help of Tom, his trusted lieutenant and counselor. But their control of the town is challenged by an over-reaching Italian underboss and his ruthless henchman. Just as this threat erupts, Leo and Tom have a falling out over the same woman. Tom, caught in the jaws of a gangland violent outcome.
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