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Film Reviews

The Man Who Wasn't There

The Man Who Wasn't There is a 2001 American neo-noir movie in writing and administered by Joel and Ethan Coen. Billy Bob Thornton stars in the name role. Also boasted are James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, Scarlett Johansson, and Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, and Jon Polito.

Set in and round Santa Rosa, California in 1949, the movie pursues Ed Crane, a suburban barber, wed to Doris, a bookkeeper with a consuming problem. Doris' overseer at Nirdlinger's, the local department store, is "Big Dave" Brewster, a blaring, boisterous man, who certainly brags about his battle excursions in the Pacific Theatre throughout World War II where he assertions to have assisted as a crack infantry trooper. Ed, by compare, was rejected from the army due to flat feet and displays little emotion. Ed supposes that Doris and large-scale Dave are having an activity.

The barber shop where Ed works is belongs to by his brother-in-law open, a good-natured man of Italian ancestry who talks incessantly. Aclientele entitled Creighton Tolliver tells Ed that he's a businessman looking for investors in a new expertise called dry cleaning. Ed decides he likes to invest and schemes to get the cash by anonymously blackmailing large-scale Dave for the $10,000 he needs. Big Dave, not suspecting anything, confides in Ed that he's being blackmailed, asking for guidance. Ed suggests him to pay. Dave consigns the cash without seeing Ed make the pick-up.

Ed brings the cash to Tolliver, who subsequently disappears, leaving Ed to accept as true that he has been scammed. Big Dave calls Ed, asking him to rendezvous at Nirdlinger's. Tolliver (whom Big Dave mentions to as the "pansy" due to his apparent homosexuality) had furthermore advanced Big Dave, asking him for $10,000. Thinking it too much of a coincidence that ...