The Man Who Wasn't There is a 2001 neo-noir film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Billy Bob Thornton stars in the title role. Also featured are James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Alexi-Malle and Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, and Jon Polito. Ed Crane , a suburban barber, is married to Doris , a bookkeeper with a drinking problem. Doris' boss at Nirdlinger's, the local department store, is "Big Dave" Brewster , a loud, boisterous man, who constantly brags about his combat adventures in the Pacific Theatre during World War II where he... claims to have served as a crack infantry trooper. Ed, by contrast, was rejected from the army due to his foot condition . Ed suspects that Doris and Big Dave are having an affair. The barber shop where Ed works is owned by his brother-in-law Frank, a good-natured man of Italian ancestry who talks incessantly. A customer named Creighton Tolliver tells Ed that he's a businessman looking for investors in a new technology called dry cleaning.
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