The Man Who Wasn't There

Billy Bob Thornton gives a brilliantly reserved, outwardly emotionless, subtly expressive performance in this deeply ironic, yet habitually impish, beautifully shot black-and-white noir revival by the Coen brothers. Ed Crane (Thornton), an everyday barber who decides to blackmail his cheating wife's boss and lover (James Gandolfini), is such an obscure, detached shadow of a man that even when things go terribly wrong, and his wife (the wonderfully brusque Frances McDormand) is arrested, the whole tabloid mess feels almost workaday mundane. Although there is one unlikely and gratuitous twist that yanks you out of the 1950s setting, the film is full of oddball moments that lend it a deliciously dark wit without ever losing touch with its sober center. Full of vividly dense shadows--the symbolic illustrations of Ed's emotional absenteeism--and superb performances that pay homage to noir sensibilities while maintaining an indirect, wry incisiveness, this is recommended. (R. Blackwelder)