The Coen brothers are back in Mississippi for their latesteffort, a remake of 1955's The Ladykillers. This comedy caper inthe heart of the South focuses on Professor G.H. Dorr's (Tom Hanks)scheming plot to tunnel into and rob the bank vault of a riverboatcasino.
Hanks' comic talent shines through in this sinister characterthrough awkward expressions and masterful delivery of verbose andseemingly esoteric observations. Dorr's antics and long- windedmusings create the appearance of a Poe-obsessed intellectual. Hanksdelivers his role convincingly, using small, tic-like convulsionsand occasional stuttering to convey the professor's excitement andnerves.
Good and evil are pitted against each other through thereligious fervor and devotion of Ms. Munson in her dealing with theboys who are exposed as criminals. Professor Dorr and his oddballcrew dupe Munson into renting a room in her house and using her"root cellar" as a practice room for what they say is a renaissanceband. The basement becomes the base for the group's drillingoperation into the safe room of the nearby casino.
Munson, played by Irma P. Hall, is at odds with what she sees asevil in modern society -- hip hop music and foul language. Munsonexposes generation gaps through her interaction with Gawain MacSam(Marlon Wayans). She finds comfort in sending monthly checks to BobJones University and consulting her late husband's portrait, whichhangs above the mantle in her home. The Coens use shots of thisportrait to cast doubt and suspicion in Munson's mind.
In regular Coen brothers' style, dark images and motifs pull thestory along. The trash barge that repeatedly travels down the riveroutside of town becomes the dump spot for the crew's excavation andthe victims of Professor Dorr's plan. A fork in the riverreinforces the dichotomy of good and evil and plays on the riverStyx carrying the dead into the afterlife.
Ms. Munson's cat, Pickles, watches the new boarders in herowner's house, and the Coens are able to pull the animal into thestory with ease. The cat's menacing glares mimic those of thegargoyle that keeps watch over the bridge spanning the trashbarge's river route.
However, Joel and Ethan Coen miss the spot with some of thefilm's specifics. Gawain MacSam draws too heavily on racialstereotypes as the character gets fired from his casino janitorialposition for commenting on the size of a female patron's posterior.References to the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights Movement areawkward and ill-timed.
Bathroom humor, akin to something one would expect in anotherinstallment of the American Pie series, surfaces in demolitionsspecialist Garth Pancake's irritable bowel syndrome. The Coens drawmore effortless laughs out of Pancake's girlfriend, Mountain Girl,whom he met at a convention for sufferers of their commoncondition.
The movie's soundtrack, in the capable hands of T. Bone Burnett,is a driving force in the movie with its gospel choir and quartetrenditions of traditional religious songs. A couple of scene jumpsin the movie lack the flow and rhythm that is taken for granted inother Coen films.
At one point, the music switches abruptly from gospel to the"hippity hop" music that Ms. Munson denounces throughout the film.This soundtrack could bring gospel back into popular culture justas bluegrass and traditional country music got a boost fromBurnett's hugely successful O Brother Where Art Thoucompilation.
The Ladykillers is not the finest effort of these wildlycreative brothers who have crafted such classics as RaisingArizona, Fargo and The Big Lebowski.
Hanks' performance is brilliant, if a little overplayed attimes, and Hall delivers a great performance that will likely earnher more high profile roles.
Though moviegoers are not likely to finish the film praising itas a masterpiece, they might have sentiments similar to those Dorroffers about the Bible, which he refers to as "the good book."
"I have found reward in its pages," Dorr says.
