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The Man Who Wasn't There - 4/4
A Coen brothers Neo Noir crime thriller fronted by Billy Bob Thornton may be the coolest movie description of all time. In my opinion, this is one of the coolest films of all time. It's a story about a barber who resorts to blackmail to obtain money for a dry cleaning based get rich quick scheme. His target? The man screwing his wife(admirably played by an unusually well-tempered James Gandolfini). Jon Polito plays the "pansy" salesman who sweats his way through town trying to squeeze everybody for investment capital. It's a small role but this was the sort of role Polito did better than anybody. He was also marvellous in Big Nothing if you ever get a chance to see that.
The wife is played by Frances Mcdormand because of course she is, but in this film her performance is small and funny rather than all encompassing. Her role in the film is more expositional to the aim of understanding Billy Bob's modus operandi. It's a quirky role though and ultimately there would be no film without her but this film is about BBT and his less-than-perfect plot. In fact the film moves further towards provoking the viewer to question motivations even though we know the truth of the crimes and the motivation is seemingly evident very early on.
Still though I question the acts of the man, even hours after now I wonder if perhaps this film is a probe into the human inclination toward self flagellation masquerading as a black and white crime piece.
The performances are uniformly wonderful but I single out Billy Bob, James Gandolfini and Jon Polito for kudos. The female parts are all smaller, all situational to whatever BBT is doing, whether as inspiration for or in receipt of his actions.
Scarlett Johansson even pops up as a piano playing neighbourhood kid which was a nice surprise. She was excellent back then. She has a bad habit of getting paid just for turning up now, that or directors are letting her beauty do all of the work.
Overall a perfect film, I couldn't suggest any flaws with it at all. Tony Shalhoub shows up, it's win, win, win.
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