The Ladykillers (2004)

There is something appropriate about Joel and Ethan Coen officially sharing directing credit for the first time with their remake of The Ladykillers. This film uses many tropes and devices familiar to fans of their work -- a big terse dumb guy, an overly loquacious main character, and American roots music, to name just three. While all these familiar elements add up to an entertaining film, The Ladykillers lacks the comic highs of their best work, though the film is well worth seeing for Tom Hanks. Finally playing an all-out bad guy allows Hanks to shred every ounce of movie-star self-consciousness. This is his first film since winning back-to-back Oscars in which he seems free from the need to have the audience like him -- and that sense of freedom comes through in the performance. The brothers have given him some of the most baroque dialogue they have ever devised, and Hanks twists and turns his voice so that he plays every nuance perfectly. His many speeches are certainly the best aspects of The Ladykillers. The final 30 minutes of the film feels like an extended version of the death of Wheezy Joe from their previous film Intolerable Cruelty, but the black humor loses shock value fairly early as if Joel and Ethan do not have the heart to stay wicked for such an extended period of time. While this is most certainly a minor work from Coen brothers, they never just go through the motions. The final joke, about what happens to the score from the heist, provides a scathingly funny final twist. Unlike most of Joel and Ethan's work, the pleasures here are mostly ephemeral. Fun while it lasts, The Ladykillers may be the first Coen brothers film that fails to stay with the viewer. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide