There were few actors who could take full command of a film like Albert Finney. Immediately intimidating, Finney was a bull among fawns. But he was also nimble, cunning, authentic, and playful. He didn’t work all that often, yet racked up accolades that he gladly rejected, refusing to be knighted and steadfastly bypassing the Academy Awards, though he was nominated five times. I didn’t review many of Finney’s films over the years (he was far more prolific as an actor before I started trying to express my movie affection in words), but I did write this for the old radio show. This early Coen brothers effort was released within our first few weeks on the air. I believe it represents the first time I tried to pen a full-on rave.

With only two prior films to their credit, Joel and Ethan Coen have already established quite a reputation. Both their first film, Blood Simple, and their follow-up, Raising Arizona, gained them significant critical acclaim. With their latest, Miller’s Crossing, that reputation should only grow, and deservedly so.

In Miller’s Crossing, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne plays Tom, the right hand man to mob boss Leo, played by Albert Finney. As the film progresses, Leo gets into a turf war with Johnny Caspar, played by Jon Polito, which is sparked largely by Caspar’s desire to see a small-time hood named Bernie killed. As the turf war develops, Tom finds himself thrown out of Leo’s organization only to ally himself with Johnny Caspar. We see the conflict and the manipulations through the eyes of Tom as he deals with his involvement with Leo’s moll, the repercussions of the turf war, a gambling debt he must pay off, and, in one of the film’s most effective scenes, carrying out Caspar’s orders to kill Bernie.

At the center of the film, Byrne plays Tom perfectly. Tom is cool as ice and hard as nails. When a thug asks him about a fat lip he’s sporting, Tom responds, “It’s an old war wound. It acts up around morons.” The supporting case is uniformly excellent, particularly J.E. Freeman as the Dane, one of Caspar’s tough guys, John Turturro as Bernie, and Polito as Caspar.

The script by the Coen brothers is outstanding. The plot has an amazing amount of detail, and the dialogue is smart and terrific. Joel Coen handles the directing chores and has turned in a job equal to the screenplay. Each scene is so well-crafted that the film is always a true pleasure to look at. At a time when mob and gangster pictures are coming out at an incredible rate, Joel and Ethan Coen can be very proud. They’ve created one of the standouts.

4 stars, on the 4 star scale.