Total Film
Somewhere between vintage Coens and Intolerable Cruelty, this comedy of mannerisms scores decent change by stealing from Ealing.
Full review
The Ladykillers (2004)
Tom Hanks leads a band of thieves who craftily impersonate a traveling band in order to rob a casino. Coen Brothers remake of the namesake 1944 crime-comedy.
"The story of an eccentric southern professor, G.H. Dorr III (Hanks) who assembles a band of less than competent thieves to rob the Bandit Queen, a Mississippi riverboat casino. As a base of operations, he rents a room from an unsuspecting, very straight-laced, church-going little old lady, Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall) and introduces his gang as a musical ensemble in need of practice space. ... When Mrs. Munson discovers their tunnel to the casino vault in her cellar and threatens to notify the authorities, someone has to stop her. Through a series of misadventures Dorr's henchmen find they are no match for her and one by one prove to be more dangerous to themselves than to her." (Cannes Film Festival)
Winner of the Jury Price for Acting (Hall), 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
2004Rating: M, Frequent coarse language, Medium level violence.104 minsUSA
ComedyCrimeThriller
- Director:
- Joel CoenEthan Coen ('Fargo', 'The Big Lebowski', 'No Country for Old Men')
- Writer:
- Joel CoenEthan Coen
- Cast:
- Tom HanksIrma P. HallMarlon WayansJ.K. SimmonsTzi MaRyan HurstDiane DelanoGeorge WallaceAldis Hodge
The Ladykillers (2004) / Reviews
Time Out
While being far from the Coens' finest hour, it remains more intelligent and ambitious than most of what currently passes for Hollywood mainstream comedy.
Full reviewThe New York Times
Tom Hanks seizes the chance to play a comic villain with almost indecent vaudevillian glee in this uneven, prankish caper comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Full review
Roger Ebert
Always wildly signaling for us to notice it. Not content to be funny, it wants to be FUNNY! Have you ever noticed that the more a comedian wears funny hats, the less funny he is?
Full review
Los Angeles Times
Grounded in caricature and played for loud, unmodulated laughs, the film suffers from the same problems that affected the Coens' other big dud, The Hudsucker Proxy -- namely, little fun and no heartbeat.
Full review
Empire Magazine
...strangely off-kilter and lethargic, stuffed with forced jollity and broad mishap. Racial epithets and bowel gags from the makers of Miller’s Crossing? Say it ain’t so.
Full review
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