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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 7.26%
Worth A Look: 47.58%
Just Average: 28.23%
Pretty Crappy: 7.26%
Sucks: 9.68%
10 reviews, 64 user ratings
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| Ladykillers, The (2004) |
by Scott Weinberg
"Trademark Coens brilliance. Tom Hanks being hilarious. Go see it."
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It certainly seems like an artistic and potentially profitable coup that the Coen Brothers were able to get Tom Hanks to star in their latest comedy. And surely it won't hurt the movie that it shares a title with a quietly adored old British comedy. But the one thing working against 'The Ladykillers' is that, while it's a great goofball comedy, the movie fans will want to know how it measures up to the Coens' previous efforts. Judged on that scale alone, this new one is a mite disappointing; on just about any other level, 'The Ladykillers' is a dark and hilarious success across the board.It must be really difficult once you've made 10 or 12 fantastic movies; everyone expects that level to be maintained. So when the Coens decided to go high-end with their Clooney / Zeta-Jones affair, we felt slighted when it wasn't up to the standards of a Fargo or a Raising Arizona. But like I insisted upon the release of Intolerable Cruelty: even a mildly disappointing Coens flick is better than 92% of anything else playing at the multiplex.
So while The Ladykillers doesn't match the brilliant lunacy of a Big Lebowski or an O Brother...who really cares? Judged on its own merits, The Ladykillers is odd and ingratiating and consistently amusing enough to earn your twelve dollar box office donation. Sometimes a solid triple is just as satisfying as a home run, and (thanks mainly to the inspired work of Tom Hanks and some of the patented Coens lunacy) The Ladykillers is, at the very least, a 2-run double.
Spun off from the 1955 Alec Guinness comedy of the same name, The Ladykillers is about four clueless criminals, a sweet-natured old lady, a big pile of cash, and an uproariously verbose ringleader who goes by the name of Professor G.H. Dorr. The conniving crooks, posing as Renaissance Fair musicians, set up shop in granny's old root cellar while scheming to loot the local casino office. Needless to say, their criminal plans go awry. Early and often.
Much of the film consists of your typical heist contrivances, only filtered through the brilliantly twisted eyes of the brothers Coen. But this time the brothers have Tom Hanks as their lead, and it proves a match made in heaven. Mega-huge superstars like Hanks and George Clooney seem to thrive under the employ of the Coens; to call Hanks' performance here 'one of his funniest ever' seems a lofty compliment (hey he's a funny guy), but it is an accurate one. The always-affable Mr. Hanks gets to wrap his tongue around dozens of long and twisty little monologues; the Coens' intellectually amusing verbosity discovers a newfound friend in Tom Hanks. His breathlessly devious performance is a thing of comedic beauty; the words spilling from his mouth are the arcane icing on a mildly misshapen cake.
The brothers are also somehow able to elicit a strong supporting performance from the generally irritating Marlon Wayans, while crafty character actors like J.K. Simmons (last seen as J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man) and Stephen Root (now a Coens staple) steal a few scenes for themselves. Lovable old granny figure Irma P. Hall contributes an excellent performance; her handful of scenes between she and Hanks are near-priceless.
Special notice is due to Roger Deakins' amazingly lovely cinematography and the resoundingly warm and gospel-heavy score by Carter Burwell. And whoever trained the cat (oh yeah, keep your eye on the cat) deserves a cash bonus, because that skinny little furball earned some solid giggles all by herself.You could be a 'glass half empty' person and acknowledge that 'The Ladykillers' doesn't measure up to the Coens' finest works. Or you could be an appreciative optimist like myself and acknowledge the fact that, after eleven movies, Joel & Ethan have yet to release ONE sub-par flick. 'The Ladykillers' may not rank among the Coens' most excellent films, but I bet it still ends up as one of this year's best comedies.
link directly to this review at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=8913&reviewer=128
originally posted: 03/26/04 12:37:51
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USA
26-Mar-2004 (R)
DVD: 07-Sep-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
19-Aug-2004
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