The Coen brothers’ third film is a gangster movie like no other. It’s not particularly fascinated with the cliches about guns, power struggles, rivalries or the sexy opulence and danger of the outlaw life. All of that is here, but seen mostly through the weary, cynical eyes of Gabriel Byrne. He’s the right-hand of the biggest crime lord in the city and he’s had just about enough of it. We never know exactly what he wants, but we do know that he’s gone out of sync with everyone else around him. Byrne is cunning, but has no lust for power. He can’t bring himself to kill. He changes loyalties dispassionately. There’s joyless self-destruction in nearly everything he does, whether it’s racking up debts, refusing help or secretly falling in love with his boss’s woman (not he’ll ever admit that or give it away to anyone other than the Coens’ camera, which catches the subtle changes in his stoic face whenever it looks like he might lose her). He never smiles. He almost never rages. He speaks with an acid tongue, but rarely succumbs to an outburst (the woman is his main vulnerable spot; she fires him up like no one else). It’s a rare emotion that makes it past the high hurdle of his sense of reserve.
Why do we still like this creep? Because he reminds us of us. He’s everyone who’s ever lost faith in the endgame. He’s everyone who’s in crisis, but can’t bring themselves to be a big whiner about it. He’s everyone who, in the middle of the pursuit of happiness, has realized that they’re not even sure what happiness IS.
It happens to fry cooks, mailmen, middle managers, truck drivers, executive directors of marketing and the guy who plays Ronald McDonald in the TV commercials. Here, it happens to an Irish gangster in an unnamed Prohibition-era city.
And if that doesn’t grab you, the Coens have seasoned this cinematic prime rib with exquisite taste in every other aspect. There are fine layers of subtle ingredients here.
The period production design is never labored or cartoonish, nor does it ever feel like a soundstage. It (along with Barry Sonnenfeld’s beautiful, muted cinematography) plops us right into the 1920s and lets us taste the air.
Then, there’s the screenplay, which drizzles its fairly simple story with so many details and smart character moments that the film only improves with repeat viewings.
One personal example: I’ve seen this movie about fifteen times over twenty-five years, but it was only upon viewing it again today that it dawned on me that the reason why Gabriel Byrne, in the film’s opening scene, wants crime boss Albert Finney to give Jon Polito the okay to kill off shady bookie Bernie Bernbaum, played by John Turturro, is because Byrne KNOWS that it will destroy Finney’s relationship with Bernbaum’s sister, Marcia Gay Harden, whom Byrne loves and wants for himself. That’s Byrne’s big motivation. He makes it sound like he’s merely giving Finney good advice to keep the empire afloat, but he really wants to sabotage Finney and Harden’s love affair.
That’s what the WHOLE movie is about. Frustrated love. Painful love. A man who can’t admit to himself that he’s capable of love. There’s not one gunshot here that matters more than that.