Review of The Ladykillers (2004) by Adam F — 14 Feb 2015

"The Ladykillers" is a black comedy directed by the Cohen Brothers and featuring a terrific cast so it should have been money in the bank, but something must have gone wrong along the way because it's not particularly funny. The film is about a group of criminals who want to rob a casino by tunneling into the building's vault. To do this, their leader "Professor" Goldwaite Higgins Dorr (Tom Hanks) rents a room from an elderly widow named Mrs. Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall). Under the pretense of band practices several days a week, Dorr invites over his "friends" Lump (the muscle, played by Ryan Hurst), "The General" (a tunneling expert, play by Tzi Ma), Garth Pancake (J. K. Simmons as the demolitions expert) and Gawain (Marlon Wayans as the inside man) they spend the evening digging towards the tunnel. As the criminals get closer to their ill-earned goods, trouble arises not only because the widow grows suspicious, but from the group itself. In this case, there's little honor among thieves.

It's difficult to pin-point why the film overall doesn't work, but a big part of it are the characters. Most, like "The General" and Lump are basically one-joke characters that get very little dialogue. Even the others who get more scenes to clearly define their personality are mostly identifiable by their single joke. About halfway into the film we learn that Pancake has irritable bowel syndrome, so in pretty much every single scene we see him in from then on, he has to go to the bathroom. Even the mastermind Dorr feels more like long strings of articulate, elaborately-woven Southern Dandy-speak than an anti-hero you can follow with glee. None of these would be a problem if the movie was genuinely funny but isn't. I actually found it to be quite annoying. Most of the characters are so bumbling that I knew there was going to be one thing that would go catastrophically bad after another so I found it predictable in that way. I did find some genuine laughs here and there (like when Pancake makes an argument for worker's compensation) but that never counterbalanced the endless, irritating scenes where I had to listen to Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans talking constantly. I had some real problems with the ending as well, which comes in so quickly it feels like an afterthought. The film doesn't feature any particularly inspired cinematography and the story is just ok. I wish there was more to say, but it's a comedy that's competently made, except for the fact that there's nothing about it that stands out and there aren't enough laughs to keep the film afloat.

The most frustrating thing about "The Ladykillers" is that everything about it should have worked. We have a great cast, talented directors and a good premise, but it's probably the worst of the Coen Brother's films. It's not unwatchable and I can see some people actually liking it quite a bit but I can't really recommend it. (Full screen version Dvd, January 26, 2014).