Cinematography:
Roger DeakinsComposer:
Carter BurwellCast:
Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, James Gandolfini, Katherine Borowitz, Jon Polito, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Jenkins (more)VOD (2)
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1949, Santa Rosa, California. A laconic, chain-smoking barber with fallen arches tells a story of a man trying to escape a humdrum life. It's a tale of suspected adultery, blackmail, foul play, death, Sacramento city slickers, racial slurs, invented war heroics, shaved legs, a gamine piano player, aliens, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Ed Crane cuts hair in his in-law's shop; his wife drinks and may be having an affair with her boss, Big Dave, who has $10,000 to invest in a second department store. Ed gets wind of a chance to make money in dry cleaning. Blackmail and investment are his opportunity to be more than a man no one notices. Settle in the chair and listen. (Napa Valley Film Festival)
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Reviews (8)
A lineup of the favorite actors from Joel and Ethan Coen films in a straightforward and darkly comedic homage to noir. And although I greatly enjoyed Ed's darkly toned journey, the silent parts of the legal plot deliver unnoticed blows below the belt. That said, everything else is excellent, from the brilliant Billy Bob Thornton to the adorable Scarlett Johansson, the superb atmosphere, and the beautiful piano soundtrack.
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The Coen brothers are aging like wine and getting better and better with each film. Billy Bob here shows an unbearable lightness of non-existence and with his stony expression delivers a powerful performance. I love the poetics of the Coens, I love their sense for the absurd, and you’ll get that in this film to the fullest. A clear five-star affair.
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Brilliantly shot and acted film noir about an insignificant loser’s descent into a fatal abyss. It's just a shame that the screenplay stumbles in the second half, after it lays its cards on the table in a conceptually brilliant way in the first half. The crucial twists come across as overwrought and the last one does more harm than good. *** SPOILER! *** The scene with the spinning bullet should have turned out differently, and Ed should have grown old knowing that he had destroyed the last, purest thing that mattered to him.
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Billy Bob Thornton's nihilistic voiceover is all the more familiar because it's basically unchanging from start to finish, no matter what's happening on screen. This noir crutch for The Man Who Wasn't There (a brilliantly apt title) is aesthetically essentially perfect, and represents Coen's captivating visual style at its best. In terms of the screenwriting, it's not all that revelatory (especially in the last act), but all the other ingredients are so compelling that it doesn't detract from the result. The seemingly uninvolved speech of the central character, who somehow oscillates between phlegmatic and apathetic, is simply brilliant. I think that every great filmmaker has such a semi-landed film in his filmography, one which lies more in the shadow of the biggest hits, but which is similarly captivating as the biggest hits. With the Coen brothers, this is that film. [90%]
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This psychological drama in the style of 1950s noir couldn’t have been made better. It's true that the Coen brothers will probably never make anything completely "normal" again and their slightly monotonous narrative won't be to everyone's taste, but it all worked perfectly here. Hand in hand with great cinematography, a well-chosen black-and-white production design and last but not least the traditionally fabulous Billy Bob Thornton in the lead role, the tribute immediately becomes a little easier, especially when all that is in the hands of directors whose films have a completely different style than all the others. It may not be perfect, the story isn't exactly packed, and it certainly could have done with a lot less than 110 minutes, but it’s still worth watching for Thornton's haunting voice and final look alone – and not only once.
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