- Miller's Crossing relates the tale of a taciturn Irish mobster named Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne). Starting off as the brains behind a rugged kingpin named Leo (Albert Finney), various circumstances force Reagan to defect to Leo's rotund Italian counterpart, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). Part of the problem is that Leo is dedicated to defending a small-time grifter named Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) just because he's the no-good brother of Leo's girl, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). The bigger issue, however, is that Leo finds out Verna has been sharing Tom's bed. Confused yet? You should be - it's a topsy-turvy world. Hulking henchmen (Mike Starr) are shy like kittens while pipsqueaks (Al Mancini) throw all the punches. Reagan dreams about losing his hat, but he never bothers chasing it. "Up is down, black is white," observes a thug named Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman).
- One of the biggest upheavals takes place about halfway through the film at the eponymous Miller's Crossing. There, Reagan is forced by Caspar's thugs to drag Bernie Bernbaum out to the woods to execute him. Despite Bernie's impassioned pleas, Reagan's poker-face is good enough that it's not at all obvious how things are going to turn out. But then he spares Bernie's life. That's not the surprise, though. The surprise is that Bernie has the gall to turn around and blackmail Reagan for letting him live. Regardless of whether Reagan's behavior is coming from his "heart" or his "ethics," two words that get bandied about quite a bit, one gathers that the newly resurrected Bernie isn't long for this world. It's mostly a question of which mobster is going to snuff him out first, and how much collateral damage will get dealt in the process.
- While I will surely forget certain details of the film's wonderfully convoluted plot over time, Miller's Crossing does leave a few truly indelible impressions on its audience. Most notable is the film's dialogue, which consists largely of expressions like "What's the rumpus?" phrases like "the high hat," and nicknames like "Tic Tac" and "The Schmata." I doubt such expressions were as widely used as this film implies, but realism was never really the point. Further excursions into exaggeration are provided by Leo, who engages in comically prolonged fights and shootouts reminiscent of the protracted police chase from Raising Arizona. With Sterling Hayden dead, it's difficult to imagine anyone playing Leo as tough as Albert Finney does, and the film also features Jon Polito at his most enjoyably coronary. All of that said, Miller's Crossing almost derails itself when a man-child wrestler (Mario Todisco) erupts into a screaming fit, but I'm starting to realize that a certain amount of tone-deafness is par for the Coen Brothers' course. Fortunately, the rest of the film, like its opera-singing thug, hits many right notes.
- On the boxer's wall hangs an ad for a match against "Lars Thorvald." Better bring your cameras!
- Steve Buscemi has a minor role as a grifter named Mink.
