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…
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…
"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.
"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…
This movie ALMOST got a full 3 stars for the following:
1. Being downright glorious after Intolerable Cruelty. And far more watchable.
2. A pretty amazing cast, even if Ryan Hurst was barely more than a dopey puppy in human form.
3. That awesome cat.
Still, it wasn't great. I mean, it had an okay story but mostly played like a really bad version of Ocean's Eleven.
Still, nothing that stars Tom Hanks can be THAT terrible.
The Coen Brothers try and make a studio comedy. Hints of their trademark cynicism pop up here and there, and Tom Hanks gives a superb performance...but this is bad. Really, really, REALLY bad. Almost none of the jokes land, Marlon Wayans is insufferable, and for the time in their career the Coens seem actively disinterested in their work. Hard to believe they followed this up with what might be the best movie of the 21st century.
Even though I dug Intolerable Cruelty to a certain extent (and hardly hated this one), I gotta say I'm dismayed by the direction the Coen's are taking of late. There's just too much generic material here, with mere splashes of the quirky humor that makes Joel & Ethan so delightful. The Poe references, the barge, and the portrait are the highlights here, along with Hanks' hammy performance (he's obviously having a blast). Unlike the Coen's at their best, though, this one's forgettable, and suffers from bland spots that just don't exist in, say, The Big Lebowski or Barton Fink.
mixed
I was absolutely dreading watching this so I saved it for last (I was working through their filmography). While it is a lesser Coen Brothers film, I think this film gets a bad rap. The source humor and early 2000s urban style seem to clash a little with the Coen's usual sense of humor. However, there were a few moments where the humor works--especially the waffle hut scene. I can see the similarities between the original story and the Coen's reoccurring themes: less than genius criminals who get a little over their heads, fate/karma catching up with them. All in all it's not their greatest work, but I think there are a few good things that make it worth a watch for fans of the Coen Brothers.
I like most critics came out of this movie the first time confused, puzzles by such an almost un-Coenesque Coen Bros. movie. "A Wayans brother? Poo jokes? Stupid unfunny stereotypes? I don't get it. This is a disappointment."
The movie happened to be on tv so I shrugged and put it on. I watched dispationately, concetrated on other thing. When I sort of took a step back and just sort of stared at the movie, I was surprised at how much I was laughing. I came to a revalation that the film's just taking the piss out of itself. The whole thing is a postmodern response to how ridiculous and unbelievable films of time were, the crass humor of the Sandler film, the mindlessness of the remake, etc. It's satire to the point of being really hard to discern as parody. It's Godard ideas taken to heightened obnoxiousness ad absurdum.
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