The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

The Age of Commercialism

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is a barber in a small California town circa 1948. A quiet man who rarely speaks more than a few sentences on any topic, he has been married to Doris (Frances McDormand) for many years. Doris is more sociable and drags Ed to parties and dinners. She is a bookkeeper for Big Mike (James Gandolfini), a department store bigwig by marriage. Somehow, Ed gets news that Doris is cheating on him with Big Mike. Therefore, he concocts a scheme to blackmail the Big Man with a secret letter. Ed wants to invest money with an up and coming businessman and maybe escape his routine. However, Mike finds out and invites Ed to his office on another pretext. In the office, Big M tries to kill Ed who fights back with a handy letter opener. In a horrifying scene, Mike dies slowly in a gurgle of blood. Ed thinks his tracks are concealed. But, soon, DORIS is arrested for Mike's murder, when it is discovered she has embezzled money from the accounts. Will Ed let Doris take the rap for him? Into this deadly mix comes a piano playing Lolita (Scarlett Johanssen) who takes Ed's attention off the crisis in his life. In this labyrinth movie, there are more twists and turns ahead! Here is another winner from the national treasure of the Coen Brothers. Shot in black and white, it is a quietly noir movie of great power, in words and concepts. Thornton delivers a performance of praise while all of the others, including Gandolfini, do likewise. Naturally, the art direction and costumes bring the forties to life with gusto. So, don't say there isn't anything to do this evening when you can get your mitts on this flick!

Set in the late 1940's, low key barber Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thorton) inadvertently blackmails his wife's boss, which leads to him killing him to cover it up. This triggers a complicated police involvement with Ed, as well as a psychological breakdown, all while he narrates the events in his mind.Billy Bob Thorton is not only greatly cast, but he is top notch in this film, you feel what he feels, and what he's going through not just through the narration, but through his facial expressions. The Coens captured the psychological feeling through the excellent cinematography, eerie music, and classy set pieces. The events in the film are fairly simple and play out like a pretty standard neo- noir drama, but his narration is what makes it so deep and unforgettable, and what makes it stand out. This is a rare instance where it isn't style over substance, both are very strong in this film. We get the classy black and white cinematography, along with some strong character reading.I had a couple issues. Like I said, it is a standard neo noir film, and the narration kind of over escalates the film itself, and doesn't play out on its own at any point. It also takes a bit of time to set up the plot, and even though it has great payoff, it's still rough to get through. Overall, it's a super solid Coen film that stands out as one of their more psychological films, as well as one of their most stylistic.

Aficionados of classic film noir will find this 21st century evocation of the style absolutely captivating right from the start as stunning cinematography, an uneasy atmosphere and a plot in which adultery, blackmail and murder are featured, all provide early indications of how meticulously the look and content of the piece have been created. Its story about a man who makes an error of judgement that sends his life into a downward spiral will, of course, be familiar to noir fans but in this case, the adverse consequences are so far-reaching that they also go on to devastate the lives of a number of other key characters as well.Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is the laconic, chain-smoking, barber with a blank stare who mans the second chair at his brother-in-law's hairdressing business in Santa Rosa, California in 1949. His reticence and apparent lack of enthusiasm also spill over into his personal life where he seems to derive no joy from the parties or bingo sessions that he attends with his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) who's a heavy drinker and works as a bookkeeper at the town's largest department store (Nirdlinger's). She and her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini) who married into the business and claims to have been a war hero, have been having an affair for some time.One day, at the barber's shop, near closing time, a stranger called Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito) calls by for a haircut and after removing his toupee, tells Ed that he's trying to set up a dry-cleaning business which is guaranteed to be profitable but he needs a silent partner and $10,000 capital to go ahead with the project. After giving the matter some thought, Ed successfully raises the money by blackmailing his wife's lover and immediately passes the cash on to Tolliver.From that point on, things go from bad to worse as Ed realises he's been scammed, kills Big Dave in self defence and sees Doris arrested for murder and cooking the books at Nirdlinger's. The numerous developments that follow are full of wonderful twists, black humour and tragedy and lead inexorably to the story's deeply ironic conclusion.In typical Coen Brothers' style, the movie's characters are full of interesting eccentricities, the dialogue is smart and succinct and there are also a couple of entertaining subplots involving UFOs and Ed's fascination with a teenage piano player called Birdy (Scarlett Johansson). Billy Bob Thornton's portrayal of Ed Crane is flawless as he manages to make his difficult character very real and convincing. The supporting players are also terrific, especially Frances McDormand, James Gandolfini and Tony Shalhoub who plays a high-powered defence lawyer whose considerable talent in only surpassed in magnitude by his incredible arrogance.

I might be in a minority here, but as a rule Coen brothers' films tend only to get two cheers from me. They are undoubtedly well-made, well-directed, well-scripted, well-acted, imaginative and often funny, but all-too-often there seems to be something lacking. They are invariably clever, but it's a kind of knowing cleverness, and I can't get rid of the sensation that behind it all are Joel and Ethan Coen patting themselves on their backs at how clever they are. Miller's Crossing struck me as not so much a film but an exercise in filmmaking.Fargo was funny, but curiously heartless and cruel. Even Blood Simple, the film with which, as far as I know, they first made their names and which blew me over the first time I saw it, struck me at the second viewing as a tad mechanical: the Coens know all the moves and then some, but something crucial is lacking. So I'm pleased to say The Man Who Wasn't There, as far as I'm concerned, proves to be an exception and a very welcome one at that.Central to its success is Billy Bob Thornton as that man, a curiously inert figure, one almost without personality, and that Thornton is able not just to bring him to life but make him likable and sympathetic is a real achievement. He conveys so much about Ed Crane, the man who wasn't there, by hardly acting. We don't get to know what makes Crane tick or why he is so inert, but we accept him as he is just as we accept the quirks of our family and friends in real life.The Man Who Wasn't There is – rather trendily – billed as neo-noir and it does stay true to the principles of what the French dubbed film noir: the tragic inevitability of the hero's demise, the way it is shot (supposedly in monochrome, but the copy I saw last night was in washed out colour), the hard-boiled dialogue, the various characters – from the 'pansy' shyster to the detectives who come to give Crane bad news, to his wife's boss and lover who is killed and with whose murder Crane's innocent wife is charged.All performances are great but I particularly enjoyed Tony Shalhoub as the expensive hotshot lawyer hired to get Crane's wife off the hook and who comes up with a particularly imaginative defence. And in all of this the Coens', for once, keep their undoubted cleverness in check.So if you like their work without reserve, watch this one. If, like me, you are a tad wary of the brothers and their 'look what bright things we are' schtick, relax, and watch it, too.