"Drop" Johnson vs. Lars Thorwald

Set in Prohibition 20's in an unidentified, decaying town, "Miller's Crossing" is one of the best films of the 1990's, for my money the Coen Brothers' masterpiece and far superior to "Fargo".

The movie opens with a shot of a local hood making a request to the city ganglord, who is effectively the mayor. Right away I'm thinking, this is the Godfather again? The request--well, the hood had tried to fix a fight, and another crook in town made things backfire, the hood is out some dough, and he wants to bump the other guy off. No "ettics", you know.

The ganglord, a superb Albert Finney, refuses the request because, well, he's involved with the other crook's sister, who is also involved with Finnery's head fixer, Tom Reagan, the main protagonist and darkly played by Gabriel Byrne. The hood takes things badly and gangland war breaks out and Finney is soon on the run without Reagan available to bail him out. Reagan starts acting as if he has crossed to the other side, and well...

This is not merely a 20's mob movie. It is what I call a "twist" movie, many double crosses and plot turns. (If you like stuff like "Red Rock West", "The Last Seduction", or "A Simple Plan", you'll love this.) I won't reveal any of them because it will spoil the fun. But equal to the plot is the movie's amazing use of language. Almost everybody has some weird nickname--"Rug" Daniels, "Drop" Johnson, the "Schmatter". The Coen brothers also devised their own gangland lingo that is actually hard to follow to first time around and the actor's deliver their lines with total believability.

And on a par with the plot and extraordinary language is the acting. Byrne is intense and brooding, in stark contrast to Finney's rather direct portrayal of the boss. (His aplomb and determination during the assassination scene, with "Danny Boy" playing in the background, is just amazing.) The flick is loaded with actors who later became better known--including John Turturro as the Schmatter, the creep who broke the fixed fight, and Steve Buscemi of "Fargo" and other fame.

The sum of these parts is a movie that is both smaller and larger than life. It is somewhat detached--indeed, stagey--not all engrossing like the "Godfather" because we know these people are creations, and we're stuck admiring the director's handiwork rather than falling into a story. And sometimes it feels like a cartoon. But it delivers great entertainment value, never insults the audience, and is worth a second, third, and fourth look. What more can you ask for?

Very highly recommended.

P.S. Oh yeah, "Drop" Johnson is a crooked fighter who gets interrogated by Reagan in the third reel. On the wall of his filthy boarding house room is a sheet advertising a fight between him and Lars Thorwald. And who was Lars Thorwald? The killer in "Rear Window", of course.

You gotta love that.