In my modest opinion, the film "Miller's Crossing" is Ethan and Joel Coen's greatest achievement to date, even greater than Fargo and Oh Brother Where Art Thou. The only criticism I've heard of this film has to do with the "over-acting"--a criticism that has been directed at more than one Coen film. Admittedly, Coen screenplays read more like novels than movie scripts and are not always actor-friendly. The story starts with Tom (Gabriel Byrne), …showed first 75 words of 358 total…

…showed last 75 words of 358 total…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 dialogue, 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.