Joe-385

I just watched this. It was in my Netflix queue. I have no idea how it got there; I don't remember adding it. I kept watching it thinking, "Gee, I must have added this a long time ago, why did I pick it? If I keep watching, maybe I'll find out what made me pick it." Well, I've seen it now and I can't for the life of me find a single reason why I might have put it in the queue.

This may be one of the worst movies ever committed to film. The acting is terrible, and whoever wrote the script (the guy who played the geek, I guess) should be shot. The plot is thinner than gas, and nothing makes any sense, in the end. The worst thing about the movie is not even that it's bad -- I mean, you can watch a bad movie and appreciate the campiness, but this movie doesn't even have that. It's just -- there. It doesn't even have the quality of being offensive (except at the one single point in the entire script where the movie tries to go for a laugh and ends up being slightly racist -- and still totally unfunny). It's like a particularly bland, boring, pointless, stupid, badly-written and badly-acted after-school movie.

I couldn't even tell you why this movie exists. This must have been a vanity project for someone, but afterward I can't imagine that they had any trace of vanity left.

The only thing more amazing than that someone made this movie is that someone, somewhere, for some incomprehensible reason, decided there should be a DVD version. Who did they think would want to see this? I would be interested in knowing if anyone other than the original cast members and the director, and maybe the mothers of same, ever bought a copy of the DVD.

Miller's Crossing has stood as one of my favorite films since the first time I saw it. Some have complained that's it's not a "realistic" gangster film, and they're right. But this is quite intentional on the part of the filmmakers. In this film, the Coen Brothers are not concerned with gangster films as a realistic depiction of organized crime. They are interested in gangster films as a form of American mythology. They are interested in revealing what it is about gangster films that speaks to the American psyche.

In the service of this interest, the movie takes place in a world of its own. The city is no particular city; the gangs are no modelled after any real gang. The characters are dense, complex, and eroded by the world they live in. The plot twists like a snake with it's competing interests and deadly repercussions. And the dialogue is a thing of beauty. Simultaneously hard-bitten, lyrical, colorful and economical, almost every line is memorable.

I can't think of a thing about this movie that I don't think was done right. I waited forever for it to come out on DVD and got it as soon as it did. If you get the chance, take the time to check it out.

Pretty good movie that has been pretty unfairly treated over the years. It has some flaws, but in general it stands out owing to outstanding performances and ingenious direction. It's been called a copy of "Natural Born Killers", but that comparison is both unfair and inaccurate. Unfair because the movie was completed *before* Natural Born Killers was released, and inaccurate because the characters are fundamentally different. Natural Born Killers was about two people who were by nature violent and evil, whereas this movie is about two who are by nature *not* violent.

Check out the movie yourself, and rather than listen to accusations that it's a rip-off of movies that actually came after it, give it a shot as what it is -- a better-than average entry in a long-standing film genre, the outlaw couple on the run. And where it's due the director gives nods to his influences. Note one item that struck me as an inside joke -- the addition of Peter Fonda, the star of one movie that truly *is* a predecessor of this one: Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry (1974).