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Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, James Gandolfini, Katherine Borowitz
directed by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780783275604
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
ISBN: 0783275609
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: October 01, 2002
Running Time: 116 minutes
Sales Rank: 20784
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 2001

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
For all of its late-1940s cold war paranoia, pulp fiction dialogue, and frenzied greed, Joel and Ethan Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There is their most cool and collected film since Blood Simple. An unassuming barber with a scheming wife (Frances McDormand) and a serious smoking habit, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is an onlooker to his own life, a ghostly presence set against a silver-toned film noir backdrop. Only when he decides to alter his fate by blackmailing his wife's lover (James Gandolfini) in order to invest with a traveling salesman (Jon Polito) touting the wave of the future--dry cleaning--do we begin to hear the full extent of Ed's understated, existential lament. As his lawyer (Tony Shalhoub) says in Ed's defense at his eventual trial for murder, "He is modern man." Thornton's deadpan eloquence and cinematographer Roger Deakins's precision lighting offer the perfect counterbalance to the requisite one-liners, plot twists, and false endings that have come to characterize recent Coen brothers films. Almost in spite of the obsessive cultural references (flying saucers, Nabokov's Lolita, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), Ed Crane steps neatly from the fray as one of cinema's most memorably disenchanted characters. --Fionn Meade

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Coen Brothers: Film # 9
This is a special Coen Brother's film. It is special because it is more for people who are fans of the Coen Brother's or film noir. While I believe others will surely like this film if they simply put it in their players, I also believe that they will not even give it a try because it is in Black and White. Well, I say, try it. Not surprising, we have a great film here. It is great because it is in black and white as a matter a fact. Like older films, the B&W brings forth a whole new perspective ... Read More

Rating:

- It drags like a wet cigar, chomped half to death in the corner of my mouth
Coen Brother's hit and miss film-making style did it again with this miss. I am a HUGE fan of their work, and an enormous fan of noir. But this was just too dragged out. The cast was great, the characters were great, the film was beautiful, but it was just boring. The narrative was ridiculously cliche, even for the neo-noir genre. It really broke my heart. I had hoped for sooooooooo much more. Go read some Fante, Faust, or rent some good ol' Mike Hammer DVDs.

Rating:

- Lovingly crafted work of directorial genius
'The closer you look, the less you see', says the brilliantly Jewish lawyer in this film. Some have said the same about the typical Coen film script, but when it comes as multi-layered and intricate as this, as well as being shot in sublime film noir photography, who cares if the philosophy might not be as deep as it first appears? And every performance here is a delight, from the aforementioned sophisitic genius of a laywer who yet has to admit that this murder plot 'makes his head spin', to the ... Read More

Rating:

- Smart Art Film
Smart movie.
Very artistically done; the black and white cinematography is amazing.
Superbly acted.
And, in the true sense of the Film Noire genre, keeps you guessing at every turn.
I found the ending quite unexpected, and though a bit on the down side, successfully portrays the more chilling aspects of human existence, leaving the viewer with some food for thought, and the age-old dictum about crime not paying.
Well done.
To Cook is Divine, Italian, Filipino, and ... Read More

Rating:

- Great Noir Pastiche
So, now I have two great movies ("Ghost World" and this) and two good movies ("The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" and "Joe Dirt") for 2001. Although I liked "Ghost World" better, on the whole, "Man Who Wasn't There" is a great movie, much better than "Curse of Jade Scorpion," which is something I thought I'd never say, not because I thought Woody Allen's movie was so great (face it, he's slipping), but because I could never get into a Coen brothers movie before, despite several attempts.
First of ... Read More

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