The Ladykillers Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)March 25th, 2004
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Even though the stories sound quite similar, The Ladykillers succeeds where Duplex failed miserably. Ultimately, each film is about protagonists-by-default attempting to do in a harmless yet formidable old lady who stands between them and whatever they deem important enough to resort to murder. In Duplex, the "prize" was the titular domicile, but the stakes are much higher in The Ladykillers, a picture that puts the Coen brothers back on the right track after the big misstep they called Intolerable Cruelty.
The Ladykillers stars Tom Hanks (Catch Me If You Can) as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, III, Ph.D., a smooth-talking con artist who oozes Southern charm as he hatches a plan to knock over a riverboat casino in the Mississippi Delta town of Saucier by digging a tunnel to the casino's vault from the basement of an unsuspecting local. Dorr strikes gold when he sees a "Room for Rent" sign in the window of Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall, Soul Food), an elderly woman who spends her days talking to both her cat and the portrait of her dead husband, when she isn't waiting for some kind of church-related activity to attend.
Dorr concocts a story about his "gospel-inspired" Renaissance music group needing a space to practice in, which grants him and his band of miscreants access to Mrs. Munson's root cellar, where the digging commences. Nothing that follows is particularly surprising, especially to those familiar with the original 1955 version of The Ladykillers (it was set in London and starred Alec Guinness, as well as future Pink Panther vets Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom), but the Coens manage to keep things fresh, entertaining and well-paced.
Even though it's a real scenery-chewer of a role, Hanks has never been better than he is here, as a Colonel Sanders with fake teeth who constantly uses 40 words when two or three would do just fine (I'd almost bet Dorr's ever-present handkerchief was really used to mop the tears out of Hanks' eyes between takes). His laugh - the nerdiest since Louis Skolnick - had me laughing out loud to the point where I thought I might be disturbing people around me. Hall, a scene-stealer in 1996's A Family Thing, does well, but just can't keep up with Hanks.
The other aspect that makes The Ladykillers special is its introduction of Dorr's cohorts (Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, and Ryan Hurst), which occur in a way that you might think the projectionist has accidentally spliced in scenes from a completely different film - even the one where Coen cameo king Bruce Campbell is momentarily visible. Also contributing are Coen regulars Carter Burwell (score), Roger Deakins (cinematography) and Roderick Jaynes (the Coens' editing alias). The Ladykillers marks the first time the Coens have shared a directing credit. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but this is the funniest comedy they've made since Raising Arizona.
1:37 - R for language including sexual references
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