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Miller’s Crossing Movie Review

Miller’s Crossing is a 1990 crime film directed by the Coen brothers and starring Gabriel Byrne and John Turturro. It’s an expectedly highly overrated movie from these overhyped directors.

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“Look in your heart! Look in your heart!

What heart?“

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The plot concerns a power struggle between two rival gangs and how the protagonist, Tom Reagan, plays both sides against each other. I have seen this plot multiple times before in a gangster flick, and although it was well executed here, I did not get anything fresh, new or particularly sophisticated to think about.

The Bernie scenes are the best ones as they are so well executed and highly realistic. The struggle of the protagonist to pit these sides against one another was also well realized and there were some potent, dramatic and intense scenes to be found in that regard.

However, the storyline is mostly standard and again not really all that clever. The dialogue is good, but far from amazing as critics usually pinpoint when discussing this film. The movie is not that well paced, and it is really a movie about nothing as thematically speaking it’s both thin and non-existent in message. Thus, I simply did not care and I also was never emotionally invested whatsoever.

The performances are the best thing about this movie. Gabriel Byrne is very good in the main role and Tom is the best written character of the bunch. John Turturro stole the show in the role of Bernie and he is very memorable. Others are far less interesting, though Albert Finney himself was quite good.

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Miller’s Crossing is also famous for its cinematography, which is definitely strong, but I was by no means blown away by it. The forest scenes are uniformly excellent and the positioning of the trees in some shots and takes was quite inspired, but otherwise the movie is straightforward in its photography. The same goes for the entire movie – the outdoor scenes are great, but others not so much. The direction is weak and the movie is yet another Coen brothers flick that I simply did not care about. It’s not bad of course, but it is not that great either.

Although Miller’s Crossing is well shot and particularly memorable in the forest scenes and the performances from Gabriel Byrne and John Turturro are quite strong, the movie is far from investing emotionally and/or intellectually as its plot is standard and I did not care all that much about any of its proceedings, leading to what is yet another grossly overrated Coen brothers flick.

My Rating – 3