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370 comments in total

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48 out of 76 people found the following comment useful :-
Not as bad as some say...., 17 March 2005

Author: Marcus Eden-Ellis from United Kingdom

This is not as bad a bad movie as many other would seem to want you to believe. It does not really bear comparison to the original because it has been made differently and updated for a modern audience. Tom Hanks, contrary to other comments I have seen here, is quite excellent in the lead role. His hammy, Poe-esquire disguise, is clearly compensating for the lack of intellectual gravity to which he so anxiously aspires. And, although I understand that Hanks did not watch the original prior to filming, it is a neat coincidence then that he chose to insert false teeth (see Alistair Simm in the original). The supporting characters are nicely fleshed out with some helpful introductory vignettes and although some of the film comes across as a little too "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at times; I think we can forgive the Cohens. There are some great laugh out loud moments of pure slapstick and some nice subtle touches of more gentle humour. This does not stack up against some of the more lauded of the Cohen's work - Fargo - Barton Fink - but it is an enjoyable and worthwhile slice of cinematic time. Beware of plenty of (uneccesary) bad language.

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34 out of 49 people found the following comment useful :-
Not an adequate remake, but rather a reinterpretation, 11 May 2005

Author: fuzzy_wunz from New York, NY

Certainly, the Cohens have enough decency to know when a task should be left undone, and when that task is the re-creation and improvement of a comedy classic,they know better than to regurgitate old gags infused with modern flair, or do they?

I will admit that I did enjoy this novel retelling of the Mackendrick classic. I enjoyed Hank's brilliant, earnest, and flawless delivery. I also enjoyed Irma P. Hall's sincerity. I enjoyed the score, the locale, the warm-lazy essence of Mississippi, and the mythological progression of events that is so common in the Cohens' films. Most of all, I enjoyed the charm of this film more-so than its predecessor.

Of course, in deference, the originators deserve their due praise, but this is certainly no simple remake--it's a retelling. Retellings don't need to improve, dazzle, or impress by comparison--they simply are what they are, and this was enjoyable.

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47 out of 76 people found the following comment useful :-
Great Characters, 24 May 2004
Author: David A Dein from The Garden State

In the annuls of cinema, Character is king. Many can come up with a winning high concept idea but unless you fill it with a rich tapestry of Characters you've wasted time. For the greatest plot idea can become mundane if you've put the wrong character in the wrong place. Joel and Ethan Coen's THE LADYKILLERS is a mundane story that is saved by top notch and very rich performances. Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall, Soul Food) is a simple woman. She lives at home alone, she goes to church every Sunday, and she prays for the souls of those young kids listening to that "Hippity Hoppity" music. So when she rents a room to Professor Dorr P.H.D (Tom Hanks, Philadelphia) little does she know that her annual contribution to Bob Jones University will never be the same.

Dorr turns out to be a criminal mastermind, trying to pull off a simple casino robbery. He's acquired a crack team of losers and creeps to pull it off: Gaiwan (Marlon Wayans, Dungeons and Dragons) The Inside Man, Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons, The First Wives Club) The Munitions Expert, The General (Tzi Ma, The Quiet American) the tactical man, and Lump (Ryan Hurst, Patch Adams) is the muscle. Will they pull off their brilliant plan? Only time and the two-hour running time will tell.

What the Coen's have crafted here is an acquired taste. The comedy is a little bit esoteric. The story plods along with almost reckless abandon, and they use swear words like their trying to buy a Ferrari with their swear jar. But something else is going on under the surface, a great character drama is unfolding.

Hank's overplays Dorr, but only to hide the fact that he might not be nearly as smart as he might claims. It's so subtle, and yet so garish I could see many thinking the performance is too over the top. But Hanks plays it so smartly and charming, you can't help but be enveloped into its complex layers.

I also liked how the Coen's screenplay polarizes it characters by playing the actors against each other. Dorr and Munson relationship works because it's the classic battle between brains and innocence. You may be able to quote Edgar Allen Poe, but if you can't do the right thing maybe you should get a real job.

The other great struggle is between Gaiwan and Garth. Gaiwan is a young black male with no conscience. Garth is a liberal white guy trying to knock sense into this stupid kid. Their escalating story builds from an almost a playful game of Older Vs Younger, but then raises the bar as it escalates into violence.

The Coen's have always had limited appeal because their films are dependent on audience involvement. You have to care for the characters; you have to put yourself in the characters place. Those who don't will leave the theater going that was weird, that was stupid, and that didn't make any sense. But that's why I like their films so much.

THE LADYKILLERS is worth the price of admission if you're interested in a silly and subtle character

drama but fails in plot. But boy it's a lot of fun, and if you give it a chance you might just walk away without that look of confusion you had on your face after THE HUDSUCKER PROXY.

**** out of 5

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46 out of 80 people found the following comment useful :-
A Coen gem, 6 June 2004
Author: Harry T. Yung (harry_tk_yung@yahoo.com) from Hong Kong

Spoilers

Falling short of a Coen masterpiece (such a Fargo), The Ladykillers can be described as a Coen gem. The style is evident right from the opening shot. Where else can you find a garbage barge and a garbage dump transformed so magically by the movie camera into what looks like an idyllic paradise. Equally sparkling is the audio pleasure proffered, with the beautiful background of barber-shop like chorus leading into an on screen duet of snores of the sheriff and his deputy. While on that score (no pun intended), lively, exciting swinging gospel music provides excellent interludes as well as background throughout.

Knowing that this is a remake of a 1955 version lead by Alec Gunnies, I'll make no further reference to something that I have not had the pleasure of watching. Instead, I would make reference to the assembling of the team for the caper, an enjoyable prologue as found in many similar films, from the good old classic The League of Gentlemen to the more recent Italian Job (also a remake). The slight difference here is that instead of seeing the mastermind (Tom Hanks) actually recruiting each one of them, we are shown what looks like a cartoon quip of each, with some good laughs but at the same time highlighting their individual characteristics.

Tunnelling for a robbery is not new, and the classical one has to be The Red Headed League in the Sherlock Holmes short stores. Here, under the pretext of researching Renaissance music, Hanks and company rent the basement of a widow, played by Irma P. Hall. One source of amusement to the audience comes from the scenes between these two, the church-going Southern black woman whose every nuance overflows with simple, principled honesty (but earthly smartness) and the completely cunning crook who tries to wriggle out of her recognition at every twist and turn. Another contrast played upon a lot by the Coen Brothers is the Hanks' talking 'genteel' (as Eliza Doolittle would have said) and the proliferation of obscenity from the 'punk', the insider member of the gang.

Funny right from the start, this movie gradually reveals more and more of the Coens' brand of dark humour when eventually the title 'ladykillers' take on a literal meaning. An 'In competition' film at Cannes this year, this Coen gem is well worth checking out.

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22 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Remake? Mainstream? So what - it is a great fun:, 7 October 2005

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

I could not stop laughing and enjoyed it tremendously. Tom Hanks was simply delightful pretending to be refined, highly educated, charmingly polite and smooth talking Rococo music lover Professor G.H.Darr who in reality was a very dangerous, ruthless and devious criminal that assembled the most hilarious gang of thieves (each has his special talent) to dig the tunnel through his landlady's root cellar to a casino vault and to steal 1.6 million dollars. As good as Hanks was, he was completely upstaged by Irma Hall who steals the movie as Marva. She received many awards for her acting and very deservingly. I know that many Coens' fans don't like The Ladykillers because 1. it is a remake of the 1955 movie with the same title and 2. because it is one of their most mainstream films. I don't care - "The Ladykillers" has Coens' signatures all over - it is very funny, very dark, and uniquely beautiful visually - just remember the opening scene with two scary gargoyles and the garbage barge.

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9 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Not As Good As The Original, 26 August 2006

Author: stuartdj from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

CRITIQUE CONTAINS SPOILERS The original 1952 film was about a group of crooks, posing as musicians, who rented a room and an old lady's house in London. She was unwittingly drawn into their plans to steal a large sum of money. The old lady was portrayed by Katie Johnson as a vulnerable woman who, nonetheless, was saved from being implicated in the plot and rose above it.

The remake takes the central story, transfers it to the United States, and makes the old lady anything other than vulnerable. That being the case, the outcome of this film is always clear. She is not and never will get drawn into the plot of the gangsters living in her midst, unwittingly or otherwise. Also seen in the remake is the old lady routinely attacking her lodgers, something only fleetingly glanced at in the original.

When old, classic films are remade the authors should bear in mind what makes them special and try to keep it. In The Ladykillers (2004) this was lost. The studio thus served up another film which didn't benefit the world of cinema one iota.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Coens in Form: A New Genre of Black Comedy, 17 December 2005

Author: ms_jade_li from MI

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Aside from there being an unidentified akilteredness to the film that kept it shy of a top rating, fans of the Coen brothers (eg Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou?) will love The Ladykillers, as will anyone who likes cutthroat highbrow humor.

Character development of the assembled band of thieves is impressive. Usually there's a few standouts in the crew that get most of the attention. Not in The Ladykillers. You'll feel familiar with every one -- you may even care about a few by the end.

Tom Hanks' dialog is Shakespearian--or should I say Poeesque--and impressive in its scope. The Wayans brother is comical and entertaining as the angry young black man. The Lady of the House could have stolen the show if the Coens would have allowed it.

There are no-holds-barred racial slams; but are they really slams--or something more? This is the kind of movie you'll have to allow to marinate for awhile. At my first viewing about a year ago, it planted the seeds. Watching it again last night, the ideas blossomed. This is no insignificant piece of work. Look for the subtleties. Think Poe.

You'll get down home small southern town charm aplenty. Much excellent gospel music from top notch church gospel singers. With the Coen edge pushing it beyond artistry and to a place where you don't know whether to laugh or feel uncomfortable, you may be surprised at who laughs last.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Completely unnecessary remake., 6 August 2005

Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I've admired some of the Coen's other movies, and Tom Hanks gives a smooth comic performance here.

That's about it.

It's not a very funny movie. It's not entirely lacking in the Coen's sort of irony and wit -- two of the gangsters constantly at each others' throats are a jive-talking rastafarian-looking black kid and an older white guy who was a freedom rider. But the humor is driven in with a sledgehammer, what there is of it. While demonstrating how safe it is to handle a kind of explosive, the expert hits it with a hammer and blows his finger off. There follows an argument about whether or not it can be sewn back on like Bobbitt's penis. The black kid claims it can be although it might "maybe look like a chewed up frankfurter." In the original the crooks execute a simple but nicely choreographed heist on a city street and involve their old landlady in the retrieval of the money. Here, the crooks tunnel into the vault. Why? Digging tunnels and having accidents (the fuse that stops, then restarts at the wrong moment) are easier to do than figuring out jokes that might take place during a street robbery. And the old landlady is in no way involved in the plan. She stumbles on the gang by accident while the air is filled with fluttering bills. She's also not old and delicate. She's in late middle age, energetic, and robust.

Well. Others might enjoy it more than I did, especially if they're not familiar with the unsurpassable original. I personally am getting awfully tired of remakes. What a dearth of creativity they portend. They are beginning to make parodies of parodies. Shot-for-shot remakes of classics that were in no need of remaking. What next? "Citizen Kane" starring Keanu Reeves in Splendocolor? "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Part Two: The Return of Gold Hat"? "Viagra Comes to Golden Pond"? Another remake of "Reefer Madness"? You see where I'm going with this. The MBAs have taken over the asylum.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
The sacred and the very profane ..., 15 March 2005

Author: Merwyn Grote (majikstl@aol.com) from St. Louis, Missouri

My recollection of the original THE LADYKILLERS is somewhat shaky, but I remember it to be a whimsical little comedy, one of those delightfully British films that celebrate English eccentricity, even in its dark and slightly murderous extremes. Made in 1955 and featuring such wonderful talents as Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, it has earned a reputation as a minor classic.

One can only assume that the Coen Brothers never saw the original, or if they did they decided that to Americanize the tale they had to strip it of anything that might even vaguely seem whimsical -- or funny. As if to reinforce the continental notion that Americans are vulgar, their woefully inept remake wallows in tastelessness. The film does display the Coens' penchant for striking visuals and offers up moments here and there of genteel ghoulishness, but it's all superficial style. Beneath that facade the film is cruel and ugly and hateful and really quite racist. For no particular reason, this tired tale about thieves tunneling into a vault has been transported to the Mississippi Delta and populated with a cast of characters trapped in racial stereotyping of every sort.

Doing a crude parody of a southern gentleman, Tom Hanks plays unpleasantly against type as Prof. Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D., a con man who finagles his way into a boarding house ran by Irma P. Hall as Mrs. Marva Munson. He hopes to commandeer her basement as the starting point for a tunnel into the counting house of a nearby casino. (Never mind that his "inside man" already has inexplicably easy access to the poorly guarded vault making the need for the tunnel questionable.) Anyway, the plot is tired and predictable, but workable if approached with a sense of clever good cheer (as proved by Woody Allen's SMALL TIME CROOKS). But that is not to be in this case: the Coens -- Ethan and Joel co-directing and co-writing -- try ham-handedly to blend macabre wit with the obscenity-laden ethnic humor of black exploitation films. As such, the film is constantly shifting back and forth in tone.

The stereotyping of Mrs. Munson as a no-nonsense Bible-thumping dowager is broad, and, at times, rather than being naive and slightly dotty, she seems just plain stupid. (She thinks Ph.D. is the spelling of Elmer Fudd's last name; that's how desperate the humor gets.) But Mrs. Munson is relatively inoffensive compared to the grotesque caricatures the film makes of the other characters. Especially offensive is Marlon Wayons' foul-mouthed Gawain, an utterly moronic homeboy, who seems to have drunkenly stumbled in from the set of SCARY MOVIE; his only function in the film is to insert multiple, achingly unfunny obscenities into every single sentence he utters. I suppose he is also meant to represent a contrast to the church-going, gospel-singing members of Mrs. Munson's congregation, but the juxtaposition of gospel and hip-hop, the sacred and the profane, serves no purpose other than to present two equally clichéd vision of African Americans. The Coens patronizes southern blacks, while also pandering to the lowest level rap music mentality.

What should have been a family friendly comedy develops into an R-rated insult. Wayons' unrelentingly filthy language is matched with jokes about bowel movements and a painfully unfunny gag about a dog suffocating. The only character worthy of sympathy is Ryan Hurst as the hatefully named Lump Hudson, a brain-damaged football players who is utterly irrelevant to the story except to be condescendingly laughed at for being dumb. And doesn't it say something that the Coens, once celebrated for their adult wit and sophisticated approach, have fallen to the pathetic level of naming a character Lump, just to get an easy laugh? By the time the film takes a murderous twist, it is difficult to care about anyone. I assume that Hanks' Prof. Dorr is supposed to be a lovable scalawag, but his posturing demeanor is as annoying as his compulsive snickering laughter; none of Hanks' natural charm seeps through. His band of cohorts are callous and one-dimensional. Even Mrs. Munson begins to grate on one's nerves, as she proves to be a dull-witted bully.

What is missing from the film is a sense of innocence. The Coens have proved they know how to embrace malevolence, but not since BLOOD SIMPLE have they shown the devilish wit of Alfred Hitchcock or Tim Burton or Charles Addams or Edward Gory or even Edgar Allen Poe. In their inexplicable attempt to mix modern film sadism with quaint British irony, they let the former suffocate the latter; and like the poor dog in the film, THE LADYKILLERS dies a slow and painfully unpleasant death.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Fun variation on a comedy classic, 9 September 2008
Author: AdnanZ

The original "The Ladykillers" is one of my favorite comedies, a gleefully macabre and witty classic with some outstanding performances, especially Alec Guinness' hysterical performance. It was also distinctively British. Now, I am not nearly as annoyed by remakes as many other filmgoers are- I merely find most of them unnecessary and hence avoid most of them. The only ones I respect are those that attempt to do something different. The Coens are probably my favorite living directors and among the more distinctive currently working, and they certainly put their own spin on an established comedy classic with this film.

I think that the poor reception this film got is largely due to its sense of humor. The Coens' dry wit present in several of their films is present here, mostly through the main character Professor Dorr, portrayed excellently by Tom Hanks in one of his better performances, but there's also a lot of low-brow humor, and not even distinctive or interesting low-brow humor, just 'haha he dropped an f-bomb' sort, which is really at odds with the rest of this film. Really, take out Marlon Wayans and his annoying character and you would have one of the best remakes ever made. Instead you've got this film.

"The Ladykillers", in spite of its awful reputation, is really not a bad film at all. It's got atmosphere, it's beautifully photographed, it's fairly amusing, and the majority of the performances are very good. It's inferior by the Coens' standards but still better than most comedies released in 2004. In addition, although it takes a lot of liberties with the original story, it recreates the most memorable sequences from the original with care and obvious affection, resulting in a hugely entertaining last twenty minutes in which so many memorable images from Mackendrick's classic Ealing comedy are translated to the American south.

This is a minor film for the Coens, but obviously one made with love and affection. It's fairly flawed, but it's also quite amusing and features and outstanding performance from Tom Hanks, an actor I don't normally think is particularly great.

7/10

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