On 2010-04-04 Todd Stockslager, Raleigh, NC wrote: So I´m progressing through the Coen Brothers movie panoply and I come here, where once again (as in Intolerable Cruelty (Widescreen Edition) the Coen Brothers rely on a big name lead (Tom Hanks here, George Clooney there) to carry the movie while frankly it seems they coast a bit.
I´d say they should stay away from borrowed material (this is a nominal remake of a 50´s crime caper), except for the excellent No Country for Old Men which I know is coming soon in my journey and I felt justly deserved the awards it got a couple year´s back. And I´d say they should stay away from big name stars, except for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where Clooney´s performance shined strong in pomade and power.
No I think this and Cruelty are just a pair of movies where the Coen Brothers heart and soul are not in the movie. And those are key words here. Hanks, scene-chewing with abandon (certainly at the direction of the Brothers) as a stereotyped southern gentleman professor of chamber music, gathers a gang of miscreants to help him (as in: actually do the work) tunnel into the vault of a Mississippi riverboat casino from the basement of a boarding house where Hanks has rented a room. He doesn´t reckon on the intelligence and tenacity (she still talks to the portrait of her late husband--after 20 years!) of landlady Mrs. Munson. When she inevitably uncovers the plot, she offers an ultimatum which the criminals won´t meet, so slapstick inevitably ensues as they try to get the money out of the basement past her eye.
That´s two inevitably´s too many for a Coen Brother´s movie. The only likable character is Mrs. Munson, but we are never sure if she is being held up as a hero, or as a patsy for a gang of criminals so stupid and so unlikable that we´d almost feel sorry for them, if they weren´t so (Marlon Wayans deserves special recognition for the vulgarity and unpleasantness of his character). Where were John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, or Jon Polito when this movie was made? Apparently not available, along with any other actor with one-tenth their comic feel needed to play this gang of bumblers.
There may have been a point to be made about the contrast between the permanently-ported ´riverboat´ casino and the garbage barges freely plying the Mississippi past it. But if there was, it got lost in the formulaic slapstick of the plot around it. The heart and soul of the movie (Mrs. Munson) are given too little to do and too much hard work digging out from under the muck of Hank and company when she is given the screen time. The few scenes where this movie shines is when Mrs. Munson is on the screen without the idiot gang, going about her ordinary but worthy life in her ordinary but worthy town--going to church to hear the choir belt out its uptempo black gospel music numbers and the preacher sing his sermon afterward, walking to the sheriff´s office, walking home through the small-town streets.
As usual for a Coen Brothers movie, the music--of the kind that inspired Jimmy Swaggart and got cousin Jerry Lee Lewis kicked out of his white Baptist Bible college--is excellent.
I´d be more depressed about this movie if I didn´t know that No Country is next on my list, and that more is to come.. And summed up by saying No actual ladies were killed in the making of this movie. Currently The Ladykillers (Widescreen Edition) has an overall rating of 6 over 10.
The Ladykillers (Widescreen Edition) can also be found in the following searches:
Walt Disney Video claimed Academy Award(R)-winning Tom Hanks (Best Actor, FORREST GUMP, 1994; PHILADELPHIA, 1993) turns in a hilariously original performance in THE LADYKILLERS, the laugh-out-loud comedy that explodes with outrageous wit and slapstick humor from the Coen Brothers (O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, FARGO). Underneath Professor G.H. Dorr´s (Hanks) silver-tongued southern gentleman persona is a devious criminal who has assembled a motley gang of thieves to commit the heist of the century by tunneling through his churchgoing landlady´s root cellar to a casino´s vault of riches. But these cons are far from pros. As their scheme begins blowing up in their faces, their landlady smells a rat. And when she threatens to call the police, they figure they´ll just bump her off. After all, how hard can that be? Wickedly funny from start to finish, it would be a crime to miss THE LADYKILLERS.
Item that are similar to The Ladykillers (Widescreen Edition) can be found at: