The Man Who Wasn't There - with many spoilers

The Man Who Wasn’t There is a classic noir look at a small town American who’s desperation to escape his life leads him spiraling into trouble. It is the Coen brothers’ only black and white film to date and nods in many places to other films of the genre, most notably The Postman Always Rings Twice. The film was inspired by a poster used in the barber shop on the set of The Hudsucker Proxy, which the brothers apparently kept hold of after shooting.

Verdict

My movie ratings consist of thumbs up or middle fingers as sometimes one starring something doesn’t shame it enough. 5 thumbs up = an absolute triumph. 5 middle fingers = a complete piece of shit, go fuck yourself.

The Man Who Wasn’t There - 3 thumbs up

Artful in every respect. Perhaps a little drawn out.

Favourite quote “He told them to look not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. Then he said the facts had no meaning.” - Ed talking about Freddy Reidenschneider’s defence in his trial.

Other stand out quotes: “He’s riding Garibaldi. Uncle Frankie’s riding Garibaldi” - Child at an Italian American wedding announcing that his uncle is riding a pig around.

“Heavens to Betsy, Birdy!” - Ed is shocked at Birdy’s forwardness.

Favourite scene

Ed Crane is led out of his barbershop by two awkward policemen. He nervously almost lets on about Big Dave’s murder but they don’t hear him. They then offer him a cigarette. He lifts his arm into the frame where he reveals he is already smoking. Then the leading officer drops it on his co-worker to let him know his wife has been “pinched”.

Second place is awarded to any scene with Freddy Reidenschneider in.

Best meme from the movie

Analysis

What better way to review The Man Who Wasn't There than to discuss the man who wasn’t there; Zac Efron. At no point does Zac Efron appear in this film

Zac Efron has gorgeous hair and a body that just won’t quit. He’s grown so much as an actor and as a man since we first fell in love with him in High school musical in 2006.

He could sing, he could act and boy did we go crazy for those piercing blue eyes.

As a man with absolutely no right to judge another man's hair I would like to add, that his hair was a bit silly. Or was it? Zac's peadocentric looks landed him the roll of lead boy in the 2009 film 17 again at the ripe old age of 21.

2009 couldn't last forever though. By 2010 Zac had started sweeping back those locks. The coward's alternative to a haircut

But it wasn't enough.

By the time Charlie St Cloud was released a new hair cut and slightly older image was required.

The director feared Zac's character would be confused for his 6 year old brother in the film, making it too confusing for American audiences - he insisted on a trim.

This look stuck. It suited Zac and he knew it. The addition of a beard in 2014 was really the cherry on top of the sweet Efron pudding.

No-one could say no to 2014 dreamboat Zac. 26 and owning it. This year saw him starring in That Awkward Moment. A 5 star movie by anyone's standards. His career was going from strength to strength.

Fast forward a few years to 2017. Zac was tired of his beard. Life had become mundane. He needed a new challenge.

Zac hit the gym hard. Here we see him absolutely dwarfing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the movie Baywatch

What he made up for in muscle mass, he lost in beard. His face, now far too muscular to be considered conventionally attractive needed... something.

That something was certainly not this... The Beach Bum, released in 2018 taught our former dreamboat the dangers of hair dye and shaving with the lawn mower. He'd lost sight of what he once was, but it was growth nonetheless.

Finally, we have today's Zac. Stubborn but charming, he refuses to learn from his mistakes. Dyed hair and strange beards are his thing now and he doesn't care what you, or anyone else thinks.

I still would.

Overall I award Zac Efron 4 Zac Efrons out of 5.

Now, the men who were there in The Man Who Wasn't There:

Ed Crane is an uninspired passenger in his own life. The life he never wanted with a career he doesn’t identify with despite everyone knowing him as ‘The Barber’. His quiet nature and lack of enthusiasm is both encouraged and challenged during the movie. His wife likes him because he doesn’t talk much and he seems to attract characters that “chew the fat” a little more than most. He would make the perfect silent partner, if only he could trust a certain “pansy” with his extorted ten grand. The only problem with staying quiet all the time, as Ed confesses, is that no-one really knows you. He admits that he and his wife know each other no better than the day they met and his adversaries throughout the film realize that they’ve known him for years and not known him at all. This is most evident by the haunting line “What kind of man are you?” uttered both by Big Dave and Frank before they hit him.

The spiraling unfortunate events of the movie lead to the right man being convicted for the wrong murder. Ed accepts his fate the same as any other news in his life, with dead eyes and a cigarette. This isn’t a movie afraid to promote smoking.

An element of the movie that seemed poignant was Ed's sentencing to ‘the chair’. He seems to have lived by the chair and died by the chair. Both times not entirely consentfully. Having his leg shaved pre-execution mirrors an earlier scene with Doris in the bath.

Most of the film seemed clever and well executed. In my opinion it could have done without any of the alien nonsense. Although this movie predates it, I first saw this exact trick used in the second season of Fargo. I didn’t know what the point was then and I’m still confused now. Perhaps the aliens turning up at the end gives credit to Big Dave’s crazy wife’s speech that ‘knowledge is a curse’. Maybe that ties in with Freddy Reidenschneider claiming that ‘the more you look, the less you know’. The more I look at the alien scene, the less I know that I enjoyed the film.

The bottom line

The man bloody well was there and he fucked a lot of things up for a lot of people. Definitely worth watching - if only for Billy Bob Thornton looking like Mo, the bartender from the Simpsons casually smoking away his life.