Miller's Crossing

Plot is a big word, and is an art form by itself, and that is why so many writers handle it with extreme care, but rarely a plot has been as twisted and brilliant as in Miller's Crossing, the Coen Brothers homage to gangster movies, with a plot as twisted as they come, revisiting the whole Irish Italian rivality without falling in the clichés of the genre, while observing the rules of Noir.

Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) is the adviser and trust man of Leo O'Bannon (Albert Finney) who is a big Irish crime boss in a prohibition era city, a throne soon to be threatned by Johnny Casper (Jon Polito) a quick tempered Italina gangster because of a gambling debt story involving Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) a double faced bookie, and the brother of Verna Bernbaum (Marcia Gay Harden) who is the love interest of Leo, and because of whome, a gang war starts in the city, despite Tom's strong advices against Leo's involvment in this story, which will end him to earn the animosity of his former friends, and to face the ruthless Eddie the Dane () Casper's executioner, and a natural born killer straight out of hell.

We are in the middle of a Dashiell Hammett novel's setting, the ultra corrupt town with rotten officials, Marcia Gay Harden as a weary femme fatale with really simple motives, John Toruturo as the meanest movie character you'll ever see, and Jon Polito, who gives a performance that makes you regret that he was not in The Godfather, and Frances McDormand and Steve Buscemi in short but memorable roles.

But the true force of the movie is Gabriel Byrne, who walks through this movie as a hat blowing breeze, he is not always at the right side of events and often ends up in trouble, but this is a tale of loyalty, and of the fragility of every system based on loyalty, and how a simple event can be the direct cause of a war.

This movie is on a lots of best lists and favourite lists, but is not much celebrated, so it's a time for everybody to unbury this treasure, with a plot as thick as a warm blanket and characters you will not forget soon, and of course, the whole gangster era nostalgia, in a time where criminal ethics belong only in the realm of the silver screen.

year of realease: 1991, origin: US