(2001, b/w) Bertrand Russell's paradox: There is a barber who lives in a small town. The barber shaves all those men and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? "Sooner or later everyone needs a haircut."

The barber in the second chair of Guzzi's barber shop, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), regrets being a barber in his loquacious brother-in-law's shop. Tight-lipped, somber and emotionally flat, Ed, who narrates the Coen brothers' film noir of the barber's dilemma, dislikes parties and entertaining; he cuts people's hair and smokes cigarettes.

Residing in a northern California town in 1949, married to Doris (Frances McDormand) - "We knew each other as well then as we do now" - who suggested they wed two weeks after their first date, Ed listens to a garrulous out-of-town customer go on about his disappointment at not completing an investment deal with someone for getting a dry-cleaning business started. Paying a visit to Creighton Tolliver (John Polito), who wears a toupee and is gay, in his hotel room, Ed (wondering if Tolliver's a huckster or the real McCoy) offers to become a silent partner (split 50/50 between professional services and capitalization) in exchange for $10,000.

Ed types an anonymous blackmail letter to Doris's boss, the local retail magnate of Nirdlingers department store, "Big Dave" Brewster (James Gandolfini) - a braggart of having been a war hero while Ed had fallen arches - threatening to reveal his affair with Doris if $10,000 is not paid. Since Dave's wife Ann's family owns the property, Dave can't afford the exposure of a scandal.

On the night Ed and Doris (in a drunken stupor) return from a family occasion, Dave calls, asking Ed to meet him at the store. Having earlier admitted to Ed his receiving a blackmail note for an affair with another woman (he doesn't say who), along with embezzling from the business, Dave here explains how he had refused to invest with the "pansy" Tolliver, whom he suspected of writing the blackmail letter and pummeled into an admission; but now he says he's ruined all because of Ed: "What kind of a man are you?" The film is rated R entirely for the violent scene that follows (which though startling isn't especially graphic or gruesome), not for nudity, sex, or language (though ethnic slurs are uttered).

The first in a series of surprising twists and turns occurs with the police arresting and charging Doris (admittedly guilty of cooking the books) with homicide. No local lawyer, beginning with himself, Walter Abundas (Richard Jenkins) tells Ed, is capable of handling a capital-offense case; he recommends - if money is no object - Freddy Riedenschneider (Tony Shalhoub) in Sacramento. Gradually Ed becomes fond of Walter's teenage daughter Rachel "Birdy" (Scarlett Johansson), who plays Beethoven sonatas.

Doris's brother Frank (Michael Balalucco) puts up the barber shop as collateral for a loan to pay for the legal defense. Dave's wife Ann comes over to share a secret with Ed about space aliens abducting Dave during a camping trip in Oregon: "He never touched me again." Frustrated that Doris's alibi is weak with only Ed's corroboration, Riedenschneider exclaims: "I litigate; I don't capitulate."

The only person who could provide credible testimony, Creighton, has disappeared like a ghost with the money. But then Riedenschneider, taking a cue from the new science of perception, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - "Looking at something changes it" - prepares a subtle argument of "reasonable doubts": "Sometimes the more you look, the less you really know."

All the while, hair keeps growing, even for a time after a person's death. Answer to Russell's paradox: Such a barber cannot possibly exist.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .