Here's hoping their next project aims a little bit higher.
Ladykillers (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:182
Fresh:100
Rotten:82
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Hanks' performance in the lead role is inspired, but this is a relatively minor offering from the Coen brothers.
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: It is always difficult to try to recreate a classic movie, so Joel and Ethan Coen took the premise of Alexander Mackendrick's beloved 1955 Ealing Studio caper comedy, THE LADYKILLERS, as the basis... It is always difficult to try to recreate a classic movie, so Joel and Ethan Coen took the premise of Alexander Mackendrick's beloved 1955 Ealing Studio caper comedy, THE LADYKILLERS, as the basis for coming up with their own entertaining and bizarre remake. Tom Hanks stars as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D., a would-be professor who talks his way into the root cellar of Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall), where he and his supposed band will practice their "Renaissance music." But they are actually plotting to tunnel through to steal a mint from a riverboat casino. The motley crew of incompetent criminals includes Marlon Wayans as Gawain MacSam, a hip-hoppity thug pretending to be a janitor; J.K. Simmons as movie prop man and demolition "expert" Garth Pancake, who has problems with intestinal bowel syndrome; Tzi Ma as the General, a Vietnamese tunnel rat with a Hitler mustache; and Ryan Hurst as a pathetically dumb football wannabe named Lump. Just when they think all is going well, they run into a curious Mrs. Munson, who smells something funny. The film includes several exhilarating Gospel scenes set in southern churches, and lots of riotous site gags. The Coen brothers have done it yet again. [More]
Starring: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons
Starring: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, Ryan Hurst, Diane Delano, George Wallace, Stephen Root
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Producer: Barry Josephson, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Tom Jacobson, Barry Sonnenfeld
Composer: Carter Burwell, T-Bone Burnett
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Reviews for Ladykillers
... second-tier Coen brothers ... technically excellent and never less than entertaining, it doesn't arrest and stun the way Miller's Crossing or Fargo or Raising Arizona did.
That sophisticated stride that made [the Coen Brothers'] first run of films so remarkable has here degenerated into a sophomoric stumble.
The Ladykillers contains several gross errors of judgment that must have given the Coens at least some degree of hesitation at some point in the filmmaking process.
It's both lowdown and effete, a jamboree of whoopee jokes and sick wit.
The film offers several big laughs, some of which are so outrageous, audiences will likely be talking about them after the show.
Si buscan cine de culto esta definitivamente no es la opción, pero no por ello deja de ser divertida en momentos.
Hanks is a beautiful vintage cartoon of a southern dandy, planted amidst modern Mississipean miscreants of all shades. Hall is a treasure.
It might get a little indiscernible at times, but the laughs and guffaws are there, and there’s nobody like the Coens working today who can balance such a peculiar picture so impeccably.
The Coens appropriate their caricatures to serve a greater payoff: The Ladykillers is devised as a morally corrupt treatment of moral corruption.
...a bit hit and miss as far as the Coens are concerned, but I daresay Hanks has never been so delicious.
The Ladykillers just feels indulgent, without imparting any notion of whom it might be indulging. Everyone in it looks as though they're punching a timecard.
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