The Man Who Wasn't There [Blu-ray] [Criterion Collection]

Shot in black-and-white and set in small-town California in the late '40s, this latest film from Joel Coen and brother Ethan Coen is a throwback to vintage film noir. Recalling Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt in its setting of Santa Rosa, CA, the story follows the dutiful, passive barber Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), who narrates the tale. A soft-spoken fellow, Ed is greeted by Creighton Tolliver (played by Coen regular Jon Polito), a chatterbox customer who tells Ed that dry cleaning is the wave of the future. When Ed discovers his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) has been cheating on him with her department store boss Big Dave (James Gandolfini), Ed suddenly turns bitterly jealous. He hatches a blackmail scheme to extort money from Big Dave to fund a dry cleaning enterprise, which takes a wrong turn when Big Dave ends up dead. Meanwhile, Doris is charged with Dave's murder, having been found doctoring the books at her job, and Ed hires an impeccable new lawyer (Tony Shalhoub), who proves costly in the midst of his already unraveling life. The film also co-stars Michael Badalucco, Katherine Borowitz, and Scarlet Johanssen.