Very well executed

Great Film overall

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Let's say it's a dark comedy. Things that happens in a sociopathic, sometimes psychopathic, society. Frances is more funny than I thought. Now I know why she often looks like shes about to laugh uncontrollably. Billy is hilarious.

This is modern film noir (shot in black and white) about a laconic, chain-smoking, depressed-looking barber, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton). Ed works for his brother-in-law, Frank (Michael Badalucco), who had inherited the barber shop when his father died leaving the shop to him-- free-and-clear. Ed's wife (Frank's sister), Doris (Frances McDormand), works as a bookkeeper for a local clothing store owner, Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini). Ed can easily sense that Big Dave and Doris are having an affair.One day while Ed is cutting a customer's hair, he learns that the customer, Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito), is trying to start a dry cleaning business in town but needs $10,000 of capital to open it. Ed raises the capital by anonymously blackmailing Big Dave, threatening to expose the affair between Dave and Doris if he doesn't deliver the money to a set place at a set time. When Ed uses the blackmail money to become a silent partner in Creighton's dry cleaning business, a chain of events leads to the bizarre outcome of this story.

Set in the late 1940's, low key barber Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thorton) inadvertently blackmails his wife's boss, which leads to him killing him to cover it up. This triggers a complicated police involvement with Ed, as well as a psychological breakdown, all while he narrates the events in his mind.Billy Bob Thorton is not only greatly cast, but he is top notch in this film, you feel what he feels, and what he's going through not just through the narration, but through his facial expressions. The Coens captured the psychological feeling through the excellent cinematography, eerie music, and classy set pieces. The events in the film are fairly simple and play out like a pretty standard neo- noir drama, but his narration is what makes it so deep and unforgettable, and what makes it stand out. This is a rare instance where it isn't style over substance, both are very strong in this film. We get the classy black and white cinematography, along with some strong character reading.I had a couple issues. Like I said, it is a standard neo noir film, and the narration kind of over escalates the film itself, and doesn't play out on its own at any point. It also takes a bit of time to set up the plot, and even though it has great payoff, it's still rough to get through. Overall, it's a super solid Coen film that stands out as one of their more psychological films, as well as one of their most stylistic.

I am rather astonished by the rating on this movie, but I shouldn't be. I find too many movies given ratings that they do not deserve. This movie has several good things going for it, but in the end, it did not come together for me, and could not hold my interest. I have to admit, in the beginning, I was pretty interested in Billy Bob Thorton's character, and I was interested to see what would happen. As the plot became more bizarre, however, simply stopped caring. Oddly enough, I liked Francis McDormand, who I really do not always enjoy. A few of the plot twists were unexpected. I liked some of the questions it raised, and what it was trying to do with Film Noir as a genre. But mostly, the characters didn't fit each other for me in a way that is needed to make the movie's universe coherent to me. Sometimes the quirks and turns of a film, while being unbelievable, still make sense within the film, and one can suspend disbelief. That was not the case for me in this film. I found it convoluted and contrived. The atmosphere, the characters, the pace... lost my interest.