You can't really find fault with the acting, the dialog, the story or cinematography of this film. Some of the violent gun deaths are over the top, but is never on a par with other gangster films for blood and gore. The film does lack however, in setting the mood for the era and for the feel of the ethnic gangs. "Gangs of New York", "The Molly MacGuires" and "Godfather" do a tremendous job of this. This film is more like a stage play. "Miller's Crossing" is all pretty much good or excellent. But this is a film that is ultimately unsatisfying. That's because it carries you along and slowly builds up a double cross and hope for redemption in a very suspenseful and rewarding way, but there is no payoff in the end. All the potential that the film builds is just tossed away when Gabriel Byrne walks away from his life and everything he lied, cheated and killed for. So you are left wondering what it all meant. We get the foreshadowing of this very boring and unsatisfying ending when the Verna character off handedly said that the hat dream was a metaphor, how pursuing it would lead to a payoff, and Byrne cut her off and said there was nothing there, just a hat. Well, that's the movie in a nutshell. Just a gangster movie. It's not "The Sting", it's not "Goodfellas", it's just a lot of good acting in an ugly and violent world that leads to absolutely nothing. So I give the film a 6 out of ten. It is watchable, but why? It doesn't make you think. You just walk away feeling like you were cheated.
Review of Miller's Crossing
