Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (Barton Fink Fargo) create a complex and graphic vision of gangsterism set during Prohibition and featuring a riveting rouges' gallery of killers and con men.Leo (Albert Finney) a likeable Irish gangster boss rules an Eastern city along with Tom (Gabriel Byrne) his trusted lieutenant and counselor. But just as their authority is challenged by an Italian underboss (J.E. Freeman) Leo and Tom also fall for the same woman. Tom caught in the jaws of a gangland power struggle walks a deadly tightrope as he tries to control and manipulate its violent outcomes.System Requirements:Starring: Albert Finney Gabriel Byrne John Turturro Jon Polito Marcia Gay Harden J.E. Freeman. Directed By: Joel & Ethan Coen. Running Time: 115 Min. Color. Copyright 2003 Twentieth Century Fox.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543073833 Manufacturer No: 2007383

Arguably the best film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the 1990 Miller's Crossing stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom, a loyal lieutenant of a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney) who is in a Prohibition-era turf war with his major rival, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). A man of principle, Tom nevertheless is romantically involved with Leo's lover (Marcia Gay Harden), whose screwy brother (John Turturro) escapes a hit ordered by Caspar only to become Tom's problem. Making matters worse, Tom has outstanding gambling debts he can't pay, which keeps him in regular touch with a punishing enforcer. With all the energy the Coens put into their films, and all their focused appreciation of genre conventions and rules, and all their efforts to turn their movies into ironic appreciations of archetypes in American fiction, they never got their formula so right as with Miller's Crossing. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right. --Tom Keogh