In the DVD commentary track for The Man Who Wasn't There, Billy Bob Thornton makes the brilliant observation that the logical casting for the dapper, taciturn barber would be Clooney while he, himself, would have been the obvious
choice for Clooney's character in O Brother, Where Art Thou; that the brothers have «
corrected» themselves for this picture goes a long way towards explaining both the pleasures to be gained from Clooney's deft comic timing (and a courtroom scene that is at once a throwback and a revelation), and the problems with a
film that in apparently striving to be accessible and lightweight becomes something, for the first time in the Coens» joint - career since Crimewave, disposable and undistinguished.