Review: The Man Who Wasn't There (spoilers)

The Man Who Wasn't There is a strange film. It seems to passive, but it merely is crouching, waiting for its prey to come near its hole. Then it socks you right in the stomach, with a twist and turn that you don't see coming.
Film noir has had an interesting evolution, one of the more interesting genre histories in movies. First, you have your classics such as The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon . Next came one of the best movies ever made Chinatown . Then there was L.A. Confidential , which isn't a film noir by any strict definitions. Each evolution of the genre presented a new problem: how to keep the 'noir' in 'film noir'.
The Man Who Wasn't There presents itself in a beautiful satiny black and white landscape, complete with smoke and shadows, an uncompromising world with compromising people and situations.
Joel and Ethan Coen guide the viewer into the world of post-war America. Complete with Alien spottings, driveway salesmen, and barber shops. This is not the world of traditional noir, this is the world of Coen noir. A totally alien setting, with beautiful cinematography, but ugly people and an ugly feeling in the pit of one's stomach.
The Barber Ed Crane, as played by Billy Bob Thorton, is practically a ghost. He is a man who just doesn't feel the need to say very many things. He just keeps to himself and cuts the hair. Ed works in his chatty brother-in-law's (Michael Badalucco) shop, cutting hair, and smoking, always smoking. Ed is married to Doris (Frances McDormand), a woman who tries to live her life seperate from her husband's. She isn't a bad woman by any means, just in a marriage that was the path of least resistance, which is the way things work out in this movie.
Over time, Ed begins to realize that Doris is having an affair with her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini). Ed does not react that way a normal person would react to it. He holds his pain inside, and ignores it. Lives in his cigarettes and silence.
Ed's world is really shaken up when a man (Jon Polito) gets him interested in an investment for the future...dry cleaning. All Ed needs to do is get the money, and he'll own half of the first shop. Ed doesn't have all of the money necessary though, so he decides to blackmail Big Dave, threatening to tell Big Dave's wife, who's family keeps him employed. Ed blackmails Big Dave, but things go so very, very wrong.
Soon, Ed's life is falling down around him. Everything that used to be peaceful and normal is now agressive and topsy-turvy.
The acting is top notch. Billy Bob Thorton underacts perfectly, providing a believeable, almost sympathetic portrait of a man who wasn't there. Frances McDormand packs punch into a small part. While not as flashy as her Almost Famous role, this one takes more talent and presence to pull off. Tony Shaloub, however, is the stand out. As pompous lawyer Freddie Riedenschneider, Shaloub steals a movie that is very diffuicult to steal. Every scene he's in pulses with life, and he even gets to deliver some of the best lines of the movie.
Overall, The Man Who Wasn't There is successful, but not totally. While I admire the fine script by the Coens, the movie does take some twists that are a bit far fetched and unreasonable even for them. Also, almost too many characters are included in the storyline. The script gets cluttered, and loses steam. But a fine effort by all.
Grade: B+