Director's Series: The Coen Bros. THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (2001)

While filming their 5th film THE HUDSUCKER PROXY in 1994, the Coen Bros. kept looking at a prop poster on the wall of a scene in a barbershop. The brothers started to wonder what the story was behind the barber in the poster and, thus, the idea for THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE was born.

Since the poster in question showed 1940’s haircuts, the brothers, naturally, gravitated to 1940’s film noir (like Billy Wilder’s DOUBLE INDEMNITY and Alfred Hitchock’s SHADOW OF A DOUBT) and crafted a “money and murder” plot around their hero, the erstwhile barber, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton).

Ed gets involved in blackmail, adultery and murder involving his wife (Coen Bros. regular Frances McDormand), his best friend Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini of THE SOPRANO’S fame) and his wife’s brother Frank (Michael Badalucco who was Baby Face Nelson in the Coen’s previous film, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU).

The Bros try to follow the tenants of Film Noir as they shot the film in harsh, contrasting black and white (thanks to the GREAT Cinematographer Roger Deakins), they have a Flawed Protagonist (Thornton), a Femme Fatale (McDormand) and they show Systematic Corruption (as embodied byGandoflini) and there is a sense of foreboding hanging over the entire film thanks to the use of voice-over narration by Thornton’s character.

The result is an atmospheric, moody film that works (mostly), but the Coens fell in love with what they were making and lost control of the pace of the film so the whole movie marches to the same beat for the entire 2 hours of it’s run, thus never really giving a high and a low, but keeping things on an even keel.

This is an apt metaphor for their chain-smoking hero, but an intriguing and compelling film this does not make. Their insistence on keeping the pace the same throughout keeps the audience at arms length, always watching what is going on, but never feeling a part of it.

Which, ultimately, moves this film to the “2nd tier” of Coen Bros. films.

Letter Grade: B

7 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)