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Created Dec 16, 2007 06:02PM PST • Edited Feb 09, 2013 04:10PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   This highly stylized production by the Brothers Coen has great fun with the cinematic staples of old time gangster movies. Certainly one of the best movies the Brothers C have made, Miller’s Crossing features scene stealing performances by Jon Polito and others.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   While several of the actors do everything but chew the scenery, highly mannered sorts of characterizations are what a stylized production like this demands. In particular, John Turturro’s weaselly fink and Jon Polito’s ridiculously overbearing crime boss are the sort of theatrical performances one expects in a Coen Brothers’ movie.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Miller’s Crossing is less a film about Prohibition-era crime and corruption than about how those halcyon days were once portrayed in the movies. So production design – costumes, cars, interiors – counts for a lot. Miller’s Crossing consistently hits the mark with sumptuous rooms, indestructible hats, blazing Tommy Guns and lots of whiskey.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    The Coen Brothers – who clearly love the cinematic art form – make the form of this movie so overwhelming that the function of telling the ridiculously double-crossing story becomes secondary. It’s one of their best works.

12. Play Great 4.0

    Lots of hardbitten dialogue, though most of it is more than a tad self-conscious.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.6

    Stylized violence and implied debauchery.

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Fierce 2.2

19. Rudeness Polite 1.2

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

    Biologically surreal in the classic movie hero motif, and circumstantially glib as an artistic take on old movies is bound to be.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Surreal 2.2

    Gabriel Byrne’s Tom could never survive on a diet of whiskey, insomnia and frequent beat-downs.

24. Physical Natural 1.0