Miller Crossroad

In one American city during Prohibition, the Irish gangster , the mafia boss Leo, runs the business. One day, another powerful boss, the Italian Johnny Caspar, comes to him and asks him to remove the Jew Bernie, who sells the secrets of Johnny. Leo denies Johnny, citing the fact that Bernie allegedly pays for his defense. In fact, Bernie's sister Verna is Leo's lover, and Leo does not want to lose her. Leo's assistant, cynical and clever Tom Regan, looks at things more pragmatically and advises Leo to fulfill Caspar’s request not to get involved in an armed conflict.

Tom has his own problems - he owes the bookmaker Lazar a large amount of money. Leo says he can fix this problem, but proud Tom refuses to help Leo and wants to resolve his problems himself. However, playing with Lazar cards, he loses. Later he borrows money from Lazar, puts it on the tote , and loses again. So Tom owes Lazar a very large sum of money.

Tom comes to Verna and spends the night with her. In the morning, he learns that the bodyguard Rag has disappeared, whom Leo assigned to follow Verna. Leo is holding a meeting with the mayor and the police chief. Leo believes that it was Johnny who killed Rag, and that it doesn’t even matter whether he returns to Bernie or not. Tom also explains that Caspar did not initially break the rules, that Bernie broke them, and Leo covered him because of Verna. He also believes that Bernie should justly be punished. Leo does not heed the advice of Tom, and as a result, because of his affection for a woman, a mafia war begins in the city. The mayor of the city and the police chief, of course, are not satisfied with the war that has begun.

Tom offers Verna to leave Leo and not lead him by the nose, but she refuses and continues to use Leo as a guarantee of the safety of Bernie, her brother. Bernie comes to Tom and asks to cover him, in return he will arrange a deal on the sweepstakes and Tom will get the money and be able to return his debt to Lazar. Later, Johnny offers Tom to surrender to Bernie, offering to pay his debts, but Tom neglects this opportunity, and Johnny, furious with the refusal of mockery, orders his people to beat him. However, Leo is saving Tom with the hands of the police. Tom learns from the police chief that Rag is killed by a 5.6 mm bullet. Tom goes to Verne and accuses her of murder, but she says she did not kill Raga. After that, they sleep together. At the same time, an attempt was made on Leo by Johnny. However, Leo kills one of the attacking soldiers, Johnny, takes Tommi-gan from him and shoots the other three attackers from him. After the assassination attempt, Tom comes to Leo for a conversation, but he continues to ignore Tom's advice and still does not want to surrender Bernie and stop the war, because she wants Verna to marry him. Tom finally tells Leo that Johnny did not kill Rag, and that he was killed from the caliber of 5.6 - ladies' weapons. Leo does not believe that Raga killed Vern. Then Tom finally admits that he himself is in an intimate relationship with Verna. From this, Leo becomes enraged, and with fists strikes Tom down from two staircases, publicly stating that he is breaking off all relations with him and hopes to never see again.

Verna comes to Tom, with whom Leo broke off his relationship, and she offers him to leave with her and her brother; he pretends that he agrees, and casually inquires where her brother Bernie is hiding. Then Tom goes to Johnny and hands over Bernie. It also turns out that the mayor of the city and the police chief are joining Johnny. Johnny sends Tom and his men on a mission: grab and shoot Bernie at Miller's intersection. Johnny's thugs tell Tom that their boss ordered them to instruct Tom to shoot Bernie with their own hands. Tom, having received an Astra 400 pistol from the thugs, leads Bernie deep into the woods, but Johnny’s people remain at the car. Bernie, seized by fear, kneels, begs Tom not to kill him. Being alone with Bernie, Tom lets go of his victim, but orders him to leave the city immediately and disappear forever and shoots into the air a couple of times.

Tom is trying to fool Johnny, saying that his assistant - stern and rational Eddie - also betrayed Johnny and sold the information along with Bernie and Mink. However, at first, Johnny does not believe this. A couple of days later, Bernie suddenly appears in Tom’s apartment and begins to blackmail him , demanding Johnny’s death and threatening, otherwise, to appear in public in the city. Tom finds himself between a few lights - Leo, Johnny, Lazar, Eddie, and now Bernie.

Eddie realizes that Tom is not the kind of person to kill someone, and, having learned that Johnny’s fighters haven’t even checked whether Tom has killed Bernie or not, he decides to check it out. She and Tom go to the Miller intersection. Tom is saved from death by a miracle - in the place of Bernie is the corpse of Mink with a disfigured face, and he is mistaken for Bernie. It turns out that Raga killed Mink, and Mink, to secure Tom, Bernie. This time, Tom manages to trick Johnny and thus forces him to kill Eddie, his devoted assistant. After that, Tom tricks Johnny and Bernie in his apartment. On the way, Tom tries to kill Vern, thinking that he killed her brother, but also, like Tom, she lacks the spirit to do so. Tom himself comes to a scheduled meeting a little later, when Bernie has already killed Johnny. This time, Tom does what he couldn’t do in the forest - he kills Bernie and lays out his pistols as if there was a shootout between them in his house (while the gun Eddie was killed from, he puts Bernie in). In his wallet, Johnny Tom finds an amount sufficient to settle with Lazar.

At the funeral, Bernie Tom finds out that Leo forgave Verna, and she, in turn, invited him to get married. Leo, having understood that Tom did not switch to another side at all, but only provided for almost everything and played out, wants Tom to return to him again, but Tom doesn’t need it anymore - he leaves.

• Gabriel Byrne - Tom Regan, Leo's assistant
• John Polito - Johnny Caspar, Godfather of the Italian Mafia
• Marsha Gay Harden - Verna Bernbaum, sister of Burney, beloved Leo
• Albert Finney - Leo O'Bannon, the actual owner of the city, the boss of the Irish Mafia
• John Turturro - Bernie Burnbaum, petty unprincipled insider player who caused the war
• J. E. Freeman - Eddie Dane, Johnny Caspar's Assistant
• Steve Buscemi - Mink, Buddy Bernie and Johnny Caspar's Mate

According to the Coen, Miller's Crossroads is an attempt to make a film on Dashil Hammett , of which they are fans of the novels. “The Crossroads of Miller” was the temporary name of the film, but despite the fact that it was not entirely suitable for the directors, the name became final, since they could not think of another one. The role of Leo was originally intended for Trey Wilson , with whom the Coens had worked on the previous movie “ Raising Arizona ”, but he died before the beginning of the trial. The role of Bernbaum was written specifically for Turturro. ^[3]

Based on car models, we can conclude that the film takes place in the late 1920s - early 1930s. Tom Verne’s proposal to leave for Pelisades may indicate the place of action — New York , ^[4] although, according to I. Cohen, the city ​​is an anonymous, typical corrupt city . ^[5] In fact, the surveys were made in New Orleans , in which the Coens found entire neighborhoods that preserved the architecture of the 1929 model.

Episodic roles in the film were played by director Sam Raimi , a long-time friend of the Coen and Joel Cohen's wife, Francis MacDormand .

The moment when Tom lights a match against a police chief token is an allusion to the film "The Scarface" (1932).

Niagara Falls , where Tom sarcastically offers to go to Vernet, taking with him Bernie, in the early twentieth century was the traditional place of Americans for a honeymoon trip.

The scene in which the character John Turturro kneels is discussed by the characters in Ocean's Twelve (2004): one of the characters says that he is crying at this moment.

The film reveals a topic that one of the main actors, Johnny Caspar, at the very beginning of film narration has designated as ethics . Throughout the film, he talks about her. For Johnny and Leo, the issue of ethics is practically important, since their entire illegal business is built on trust in specific people. Therefore, gangster and mafia Johnny is constantly trying to find answers to “interesting ethical questions”, although outwardly it seems that he is ironic at the same time.

Eddie Dane (Johnny's right hand), Verne, and even Leo himself, ethical questions reduce to the unconditional support of those they love. The petty crook and bookmaker Bernie Bernbaum ignores ethics in favor of momentary manipulations and pays for it at the very moment when he achieves his goal.

The protagonist Tom Regan throughout the film managed to go through all possible temptations, injustice and trials, including Miller's intersection - an abandoned road in a suburban forest where gangsters usually took their victims to kill. At the same time, he did not violate his professional ethics and ultimately helped his boss Leo to avoid the possible collapse that he himself had brought to himself by insufficiently deliberate acts because of his passion for a woman.

Almost unbelievable events take place in the film’s spirit and style of filmmakers: Tom miraculously survives at the Miller intersection, and at the end of the film Leo realizes his mistakes and forgives Tom his betrayal with Verna. Tom once again shows his pride and character and refuses a clearly advantageous offer, thereby winning the final moral and moral victory over Leo.

I'm talking about friendship. I am talking about character. I'm talking about ... Damn, Leo, I am not ashamed to say this word - I am talking about ethics.

Original Text (Eng.)

I'm talkin 'about friendship. I'm talkin 'about character. I'm talkin 'about - hell, Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word - I'm talkin' about ethics.

- Johnny Caspar, mafia boss from Miller's Crossroads

Thus, as Johnny said in the first minutes of the film, the plot returns to the issue of "friendship, character and ethics" throughout the entire viewing. The screensaver and, at the same time, the symbol- refrain of the entire film is Tom's gangster hat, lying in the woods at Miller's intersection, which he finds and puts on again and again after another blow or loss.

The artistic content laid by the novels of Deshiel Hammet , taken as the basis for the scenario, is an exact transfer of the atmosphere of America from the times of the Great Depression . This neonuar -inspired content, brilliant casting and acting, made a gangster movie into a spectacular and deep psychological drama - one of the best works of the Cohen brothers ^{[6] [7] [8] [9]} .

• 1990 - At the International Film Festival in San Sebastian, the film “Miller's Crossroads” was awarded the prize in the Best Direction category ^[10] .

• Miller's Crossroads on allmovie
• Miller Crossroads (English) on the Rotten Tomatoes site
• Miller Crossroads (English) on Box Office Mojo