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THE LADYKILLERS
Review by Gordon Justesen
Stars:
Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, Ryan Hurst
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Studio: Disney/Touchstone
Features: See Review
Length: 104 Minutes
Release Date: September 7, 2004
"I'm
looking for a QUIET tenant."
"Madam,
you are addressing a man who is quiet, and yet…not quiet, if I may offer you a
riddle."
Film
***
The Coen Brothers
have done it again! Once again illustrating that even while making a mainstream
movie they never lose their pure quirky touch, filmmaking brothers Joel and
Ethan Coen have delivered perhaps their most darkly humored film in quite some
time. The Ladykillers is knockout
caper comedy that honors the Coen Brothers' tradition of taking richly observed
characters and placing them in the most bizarre of circumstances.
It's also, if I'm
not mistaken, the Coen's first stab at a remake, and a successful one at that.
The film is an update of a 1955 British comedy with Alec Guiness and Peter
Sellers. I never saw the original film, and while I'm sure that the plot of the
two movies are pretty much the same, this new version clearly gets away with
some edgy stuff that only the Coen's could provide. I'm also sure that the
remake has a few extra elements you simply couldn't get away with back in the
50s.
With the setting
transplanting from London to the small southern town of Saucier, the story's
central figure is Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall), an elderly church going lady and
widower. She's an engaging spiritual type, yet the town's sheriff is put off by
her tiring requests to tell her neighbor to stop blasting out what she calls
"hippity-hop" music. She's so driven by her faith in the Lord, that
she even donates five dollars a month to Bob Jones University. When she's not
attending church, she's at home tending to her cat, Pickles, and talking to a
portrait of her deceased husband.
When Ms. Munson is
soon greeted at her door by the odd presence of Goldthwait Higginson Dorr (Tom
Hanks), she doesn't know what to think. Dorr, proclaiming to be a professor of
Latin and Greek, is responding to a sign in her window of a room to rent out.
Dorr tells her he needs a quiet place to reside and for his band of musicians to
make some church music-magic. She agrees to the request.
The professor then
assembles his team of so-called musicians, each of whom is given a hilarious
introduction. There's Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans), a trash talking janitor at
a casino; Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons), who specializes in demolition work, The
General (Tzi Ma), a chain smoking silent individual who has tunnel digging
experience, and lastly a brain-deprived football jock named Lump (Ryan Hurst).
Needless to say, these guys have probably never even touched a musical
instrument.
As it turns out,
Professor Dorr is actually a man of criminal proportions. He has assembled his
team of goons in the work cellar of Ms. Munson's home for one purpose; to dig a
tunnel that leads all the way to a nearby riverboat casino, named the Bandit
Queen, and to rob it. To supply their cover, the group has been given fake
instruments, and a boom box to play the music which will cover their tunnel
digging.
For Tom Hanks, not
only does The Ladykillers mark the
actor's return to comedy, but it results in his most eccentric performance in
recent memory. For the role of G.H. Dorr, Hanks, acting with a set of fake
teeth, has been given an appearance that so closely resembles Col. Sanders, and
a dialect of speaking which sounds like a southern Vincent Price. Dorr quotes
the work of Edgar Allen Poe quite frequently, adding even more of a bizarre
element to the character. To cap it all off, Dorr possesses the single oddest
form of laughing I've ever heard. It's quite a marvelous performance.
Although Hanks is
considered the lead of the movie, The
Ladykillers is more of an ensemble piece, where each actor in the cast gets
their moment to shine. As the unsuspecting Ms. Munson, Irma P. Hall just about
steals the movie with her performance. The movie also produces big laughs by way
of Marlon Wayans and J.K. "Jameson" Simmons.
To appreciate a
movie like The Ladykillers, you have
to really have a certain sense of humor which isn't found in all comedies, but
only in ones that are very dark. The Coen Brothers, who this time share
directing credit in addition to writing, have maintained an element of bizarrely
funny moments in each of their movies, and the last third of The
Ladykillers provides their most dark moments of comedy perhaps since Fargo.
Though it doesn't
come off a superior to any recent film from the Coens, especially Intolerable
Cruelty, The Ladykillers is still
a high worthy entry in their list of quirky and entertaining comedies. The
madcap lunacy, mixed with Tom Hanks' biting performance result in a hugely funny
sting of a caper comedy.
Video
****
Disney has provided
a most outstanding looking disc! By now, one should expect a most fine looking
piece of cinema when watching a Coen Brothers film, especially when the
cinematography is provided by their long time collaborator, Roger Deakins. The
anamorphic picture is consistently sharp and thoroughly alive with an immense
level of detail and striking usage of colors, which are as vibrant as the human
eye can detect. For certain, one of the more superb video offerings I've seen.
Audio
***1/2
The 5.1 mix
delivers much bang. Like the Coens' O
Brother, Where Art Thou, this movie happens to have a lively soundtrack of
music. This time around gospel music, both old and contemporary, finds its way
into many scenes in the movie. A couple of sequences of a church choir
performing provide the presentation highpoints. Dialogue is extremely well
delivered and heard, as is various instances of background noise. A strong
presentation!
Features
**
Surprisingly a bit
light this time around. Featured is a "Slap" reel, featuring several
outtakes of a scene where Irma P. Hall slaps Marlon Wayans repeatedly. There's
also a featurette titled "Danny Ferrington: The Man Behind the Band",
which explores the man who provided the musical instruments for the movie, and a
compilation of deleted scenes of gospel music footage, titled "The Gospel
of The Ladykillers".
Summary: