The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
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				movie info		5: excellent
				billy bob thorton		4: very good
				frances mcdormand		3: average
				michael badalucco		2: fair
				james gandolfini		1: poor
				martytown rating:		name (required)
				average rating at martytown: 5.00

I've been a fan of film noir for a long time. From the black and white thrillers featuring Bogie as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, to the full blown classic Chinatown (my favorite movie of all time), and my recent favorite L.A. Confidential, I can't get enough of it.

Add to this that The Man Who Wasn't There is a Coen Brothers' movie, and you have all the ingredients for a martytown hit. And this movie does not disappoint. Set in the 40s(?), the movie is about an ordinary man (Billy Bob Thornton), working away in his hum drum dead end job as a barber, who thinks he can make the big time when an investment scheme comes along. All he has to do is blackmail a friend who is sleeping with his wife. This guy is so lame that he sees adultery not as an offense to him as the husband, but only as a way to fund his scheme. Of course, things go terribly wrong in a number of plot twists, which is the way of all good noir.

A triumph on many levels, the Coen Brothers have captured the essence of the genre, and sprinkled it with the trademark Coen slant on things.
My Movie of the Year!
— marty