"The Man Who Wasn’t There" is a masterpiece of understatement that uses the language of its narrator to wryly comment on his situation in life. Billy Bob Thornton is Ed Crane, a master barber eking out an existence from one clip of hair to the next. His dead pan delivery of his innermost thoughts is a perfect counterpoint to a dull life. At least it’s dull until he concocts an ill conceived blackmail plan that sets the tone for this dark comedy. People pay for the vile misdeeds of others but not without having committed some crime themselves. This is, after all, the world of the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan. They know how to take a genre, hold it up to a mirror to reflect some twisted logic and turn it into something that is uniquely their own. Right becomes left. Left, right. Sometimes people do something wrong for the right reasons then turn around and do something right for the wrong reasons. In their modern screwball comedy "Raising Arizona" ex-con H.I. McDonough and his ex-cop wife Edwina steal quintuplet Nathan Arizona Jr. All they want to do is share their love to save him from the neglect they envision from a family who won’t have enough time to care for so many kids; then they return him because of all the trouble they have keeping him out of the hands of a biker who wants to up the ante on some reward money. In similar fashion, Ed Crane decides to blackmail his boss to raise the money he needs to start a new life in the brand new up and coming business of dry cleaning. Later he takes an interest in the musical career of a girl in a plan that backfires with divine retribution.

This latest Coen opus is a paean to film noir that intentionally evokes the gritty films made from the novels of James Cain in the forties especially "The Postman Always Rings Twice" with John Garfield and Lana Turner. Its plot twists are reworked and retrofitted for "The Man Who Wasn’t There." Everyone who inhabits Ed Crane’s world, from his Brother-in-Law (Michael Badalucco) to his wife’s boss Big Dave (James Gandolfini), talk past him. His wife (Frances McDormand) hardly talks to him at all. Ed is as agreeable as any man alive. His wife finds him so agreeable she is not ashamed to carry on an affair behind his back Ed doesn’t care because her secret could be his ticket out of his humdrum life when a stranger ((Jon Polito) plants the seed of an idea for a new life in his head. After that Ed doesn’t care much for anything and drifts aimlessly through his life while people die around him.

The Coen Brothers have meticulously created small town America of the late forties where the Barber Shop is the center of rumor and innuendo. Everything you ever wanted to know about old fashion haircuts is in "The Man Who Wasn’t There." The Barber Shop is also a place of social discourse where people shed tidbits of their lives along with their hair. They also philosophize about the world. Ed Crane listens. He doesn’t share his thoughts with his customers. He is an inactive participant in a an ever changing world. The small neighborhood department store his wife works in could be a thing of the past. The dry cleaning business he is interested could be the wave of the future. Men who once led quiet lives learned how to kill in WWII, while Ed stayed home and cut hair. Big Dave brags about his WWII exploits in the Pacific. He is not so much a braggart as a man who likes to make other people feel small. Jim Gandolfini’s size makes you feel the weight of Big Dave’s words and makes you believe he is still capable of killing. But does anybody believe that mild mannered Ed Crane can kill? This is the question that sustains the movie even in the face of the obvious. If Ed is guilty of any crime at all it’s the crime of omission. He admits nothing and holds back everything. You always want to know what’s going on in Ed’s mind and how he will handle himself as he drifts through life with the smell of death and talc on his tail. You want to know what obstacles the Coen Brothers will throw in his path and what quirks of fate they can steal from the Black and White film noir movies that inspired them. But most of all you want to hear Billy Bob Thornton deliver Ed Crane’s last pearls of wisdom before his date with destiny.

Copyright 2001

"Pushing Tin" (1999) - Film doesn’t hold up all the way through but Billy Bob does as Russ Bell, an air traffic controller who likes to live life on the edge.

"A Simple Plan" (1998) - Billy Bob adapted this best seller and co-stars as the simpleton brother who is not comfortable with his brother’s plan to steal some mob money from a downed airplane. Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda also star with Sam Raimi directing.

"Primary Colors" (1998) - Mike Nichols’ film about a charismatic candidate’s bid for the White House. John Travolta plays the lead in a role modeled after Bill Clinton. Billy Bob likewise nails his role as a political strategist who bears more than a striking resemblance to real life James Carville.

"Sling Blade" (1996) - Thornton wrote, directed, and stars in this adaptation of a short called "Sometimes They Call It a Sling Blade" made three years earlier. He plays Karl Childers, an ex-mental patient befriended by a young boy and his mother after his release from a mental institution twenty years after he murdered his mother and her lover. This labor of love won Billy Bob an Oscar for his screenplay.

"One False Move" (1991) - This low budget indie put Billy Bob Thornton and director Carl Franklin ("Devil in a Blue Dress") on the map. Thornton wrote and co-stars as a hood on the run with two accomplices from a drug related massacre in L.A. Michael Beach is chilling as a high IQ killer and Cynda Williams is the girlfriend with roots in Arkansas. Bill Paxton is the Sheriff out to get them. Excellent in every way.

"Blood Simple" (1084) - More shades of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" with the owner of a diner trying to bump off the wife and boyfriend instead of the other way around. But wait there’s more! An on it goes with one twist after another. John Hedaya stars with John Goetz, Frances McDormand and m. Emmett Walsh.

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) - John Garfield and Lana Turner are the doomed lovers out to kill her husband Cecil Kellaway. A bona fide classic that has withstood the test of time.

"Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie" (1952) - A slice of Americana with David Wayne as a small town barber who looks back on his life with a mix of nostalgia and regret. Don’t let the title fool you. This movie has it all - even gangsters! The movie particularly shows how people’s lives are affected by events in far away places. This is an overlooked gem because there are no major stars, despite some terrific performances by Wayne and his co-stars - Hugh Marlowe, Alan Hale and Jean Peters. Directed by Henry King who started in the silent era, worked with D.W. Griffith, and made went on to make some of Tyrone Power’s and Gregory Peck’s best films.