by Shael Stolberg

“What’s the rumpus?” Is a common question asked by many of the characters including Gabriel Byrne as Tom Regan, the intellectual consigliore, to Albert Finney’s mob boss, Leo, in the Coen Brothers’ 1990 classic film Miller’s Crossing.

To say this is just a gangster film is to say that Babe Ruth was just a baseball player. Miller’s Crossing is Joel & Ethan Coen’s third film and the last shot by director Barry Sonnenfeld. The scale of the film is much larger in regards to the thematic choices, character development and certainly production value. Their previous two films were set in current day whereas Miller’s Crossing is a film that takes place in the 1930’s prohibition era.

It starts with an up and coming mob boss Johnny Casper (Jon Polito) discussing the importance of “ethics”. It seems a certain small time bookie named Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) has sold out Casper’s fix on a prizefight and thereby not giving him the odds he expected and the money he planned to make. Therefore, Casper asks for permission to kill Bernie.

It seems pretty simple, right? Well, it’s not. Bernie happens to be Leo’s girlfriend Verna’s (Marcia Gay Harden in her first role) sister, who happens to be Tom’s mistress, who happens to be Leo’s consigliore, as mentioned earlier. Now that does not even include the connections we find out between Johnny Casper’s right hand man the Dane (J.E. Freeman), and Bernie via Mink (Steve Buscemi). The Coens’ weave a noirish, viscerally clever tale with 1930’s Clifford Odetts-like dialogue, wonderful acting and beautiful cinematography.

Let’s just say, to use another quote from the film, “up is down, black is white…” but everything makes sense in the end.

Click on link to listen to some reminisces by Marcia Gay Harden, Ben Barenholtz & Barry Sonnenfeld made after the Miller’s Crossing screening at the 18th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival.