Miller's Crossing

We watched Miller's Crossing, a Coen Brothers movie, yesterday. It's really very good--even better than I expected. It's a 1930s gangster movie, but it's extremely well done. Gabriel Byrne does an excellent job as the star. He's a guy caught between these two warring factions, using and being used by everyone. It's very similar to The Big Lebowski in that way, that everyone has something going on, and there's one guy in the middle trying to figure out what's going on and what the next move should be. The difference is that Byrne's character is very SMART, smarter by far than the Dude, and thus is able to do much more of his own Machiavellian manipulation. The cinematography was great--no weird tricks or gimmicks. The script was well-written, incorporating period lingo without being cheesy, and there were no plot-holes that I really noticed. Every action had a reason and a consequence, and in the end it became clear both what everyone's motives were and what the ultimate consequences of the actions would be. In all, I think it's a top-notch film and highly recommend it to anyone who likes a well-made movie, particularly to Coen brothers fans.