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…
"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…
"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.
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…
Well, this left a really sour taste in my mouth. Easily the weakest I've seen from the Coens yet, which could be b/c this is the first movie they directed together (They collaborated before this but didn't direct together until this one).
Well... that was really something. I finally found a Coen Brothers film I didn't like. It's not that The Ladykillers is a terribly bad film, it's just not good and doesn't showcase what makes the Coens so good.
There are a number of actors I like, some even do a pretty good job (Hanks, Simmons). Then there's Wayans, and I'm not even sure I would put it all on him, it seemed like he was a caricature of what white people think black people are like. It was uncomfortable to watch.
Everything is all over the place too. A lot of the time the Coens have that dynamic and are able to balance it and make it work to the greater good of the story, not this time though. Suddenly we're following this storyline, then that storyline, then we're at the climax, then there's another 40 minutes. It's rough. I'm not sure I'll ever watch this one again.
“This man brought his bitch to The Waffle Hut.”
The ensemble cast is such an assortment I love it!
Definitely better than my very low expectation. I thought Tom Hanks, Tzi Ma, and JK Simmons were fun to watch. The plot was funny enough in a Coen-sorta way. Wasn't too happy with Marlon Wayans and Ryan Hurst.
Underrated.
Also, for all ten of you Hail Caesar fans out there, make sure you watch this for an early appearance of the infamous "would that it were so simple."
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