What did you watch? The 1990 crime drama Miller’s Crossing

Is this about crossing guards who stop a crime? No, but that’s…that’s a terrible idea.

So I bought this DVD set the other day of four Coen Brothers movies, and I reviewed one of those the other day: Blood Simple. This was another one I hadn’t seen, and is know to be another dark crime movie, so, let’s check it out.

Tom is a right hand man to a mobster/political boss, Leo. Leo is ignoring the pleas of another mobster, Johnny, to root out a bad bookie who might be spoiling bets on Johnny’s fixed fights. Leo defends the bookie, Bernie, because Leo is dating Bernie’s sister, Verna.

But guess what, Tom is ALSO dating Verna, oops. By dating I mean “sex” so it’s not like they’re going to the movies together. Johnny offers Tom to switch sides because he’s ready initiate a war against Leo. Tom doesn’t take it personally when Johnny has his goons try to beat him to a pulp over Tom’s loyalty – in fact, he goes to Leo and begs Leo to hand Bernie over to Johnny, even admitting Tom’s affair with Verna to Leo.

Leo had just fought off a bunch of Johnny’s goons in a gruesome way, so he’s ready to go to war no matter what, and kicks Tom out of the gang. Tom goes to Johnny, and Johnny says he’ll take care of Tom if Tom drives Bernie out into the woods and kills him.

Tom, instead, threatens Bernie, and shoots in the air and tells Bernie to get lost and never come back to town. Johnny’s ridiculously stupid gang believes that Tom has killed Bernie, they’re happy, except Johnny’s right hand man, The Dane, who is a bully among bullies and probably the only reason why anything gets done around town.

But, someone is STILL meddling with Johnny’s fixed fights, and who could it be? Tom sets up these characters to handle each other in the only way they know how: brutal murder. Can he find his way into Leo and or Verna’s good graces?

WELL? Can he? This is one I’m not going to spoil even though it’s 34 years old. I think you should check it out. It’s engrossing, and subdued after the Coen’s flashy sophomore movie Raising Arizona.

Hey, wait – there’s a right-hand man type who falls for the mob boss’ girl? And he starts playing both sides to get to the truth? Didn’t we just see this movie? Tom & Leo’s relationship, along with how Leo controls the mayor and police chief, is definitely influenced by Dashiell Hammett’s characters The Glass Key, as well as the gang warfare in the notoriously violent Red Harvest (which I don’t think was ever adapted into a movie). There’s a lot of homages to other noir films, such as the end to The Third Man.

The Coens must have been big on noir and pulp novels. I had seen some of their movies before, including The Big Lebowski, which made more sense (and seemed better) after a 2nd viewing, and made even more sense after I read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. I don’t need to know if Coen fans need to do that but they definitely should check out these other movies and novels if these kinds of stories interest them.

Anything about the cast? It features a very young John Turturro and…Steve Buscemi, who must have always looked like that. Also, he’s on screen a-plenty, but you may not recognize one of the gunmen – keep an eye out for Spider-Man director Sam Raimi as they shootout one of Leo’s hangouts. Jon Polito steals the show as Johnny Caspar, in my opinion, and he’d appear in a few more Coen films. He passed away in 2016.