2004 Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord – a sharp old woman.
So........."The Ladykillers" is often regarded as The Coen Brothers weakest film, and I saw it was on Netflix so I figured I'd let curiosity get the better of me and give it a watch.
And, while I can't say I was bored watching it and found myself enjoying some aspects of it overall, I can't tell wether or not I liked it as a guilty pleasure or even if I liked it at all.
It's a remake/adaptation/whatever you want to call it of a film/novel of the same name following a low life professor and his gang using an old women's house as a means to dig a tunnel towards a local Casino and rob the place blind.
Okay! Good…
"You brought yo bitch...to the waffle hut."
The Ladykillers has been deemed by many to be The Coen Brothers' weakest film. And while it isn't there best work, it certainly isn't there worst either. It's funny throughout, Tom Hanks gives one hell of performance here, and I loved where the third act went. But I hated the last two minutes of the movie. A lot.
Definitely worth a look if you liked some of the brothers' previous comedic efforts. It's just odd to think that they followed this one up with No Country for Old Men.
Remaking 1955's Ealing Studios comedy of the same name, Joel and Ethan Coen's "The Ladkillers" is little more than an excuse for Tom Hanks, J.K. Simmons and the rest of the cast to mug under false teeth and fake mustaches for 104 minutes. Playing a gang of thieves working to knock off a casino under the guise of a group of musicians, the cast spouts accent-affected dialogue with no heavy pretensions. It is all a lot of fun, but it is forgettable and mostly meaningless.
Moving in as a tenant of Irma P. Hall's Southern gentlewoman, Tom Hanks stars as Professor G.H. Dorr, a man with more up his sleeve that appearances may predict. "The Ladykillers" revolves Dorr and his…
"I need unguent" - Steve G Does The Coens
I'm almost as baffled as most other people were.
If nothing else, The Ladykillers, along with Intolerable Cruelty, showed that the Coen brothers were human after all.
What interests me most about The Ladykillers is the way they took a film that really was, actually, ideal for their style and somehow cocked it up. The reason they don't get it right is perhaps because it was perfect for their style - the set-up, characters and outcome are all largely set in stone to the point where they don't actually have to transpose their quirks on it.
Yet having spent most of their career taking scripts and having to…
The Ladykillers is a very strange film, written and directed by the Coen Brothers but featuring characters, dialogue, and plotting that feels as though it would be more at home in a Wes Anderson film, as it plays out almost like a darker, live action version of Fantastic Mister Fox. Never boring, and featuring a truly delightful performance from Tom Hanks, the point of The Ladykillers is still never clear, and lack of focus keeps it from greatness. It is not, however, a scourge on the Coen Brothers career, as some seem to believe, and will likely go down as an interesting footnote in a brilliant oeuvre. Nothing less, nothing more.
What does it mean to be a "lesser Coen Brothers film"? Does that mean it lies at the bottom of a DVD pile gathering dust for years, or does it simply mean that if you're in the mood for one of their films it'll come after you've watched The Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing, Inside Llewyn Davis, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? It's been a few years since my only viewing of The Ladykillers, but following my reintroduction to Fargo after a lengthy spell, I thought I'd give this another go.
The Ladykillers hits for the fences early on. Giving Tom Hanks the room to return to his comic roots he honed so well back in the eighties, that Southern…
Not my favourite Coen Brothers movie by a long shot, but the story and humour are good enough to keep you entertained.
Silly fun.
This is frequently called the Coens worst, and I think it gets a bad rap. It's certainly not the best, but it's really sharp and funny, Hanks is very witty and charismatic, hilarious characters, and enjoyable from beginning to end
Not my favorite Coen's film, but contains some of my favorite Coen's scenes... including that priceless opener. Also, didn't pick up any references in the tv series, except for maybe a bathroom connection in season 3.
It's odd how a film can be ruined by a single bad choice. Tom Hanks' performance just does not work in any way, and that compounds every other problem, especially the increased reliance on poop jokes. It's not terrible, but compared to the rest of the Coens' filmography it's a pretty big low.
3.5/10
Whist ranking the Coen Brothers movies over the past month or so I have come to notice that ranking the films based on how they are made is impossible considering that around the time of Raising Arizona they mastered the craft of film-making. They have it down to a science now, the cinematography is always terrific, the framing is often perfect and the films always have a great knack for filming conversations and making it engaging and indulging. So now I have started to rank the Coen’s work on how funny, entertaining, and enjoyable they are- sure there are exceptions (Inside Llewyn Davies is undoubtedly a better made film than Intolerable Cruelty for example) but in general my favourites…
5/10
"You've got to accept your responsibilities young man, and shoot that old lady."
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