Opens Fri March 26.
The new Coen Brothers picture, The Ladykillers, stars Tom Hanks as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D. A cross between Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn, Goldthwait is a true Southern gentleman, partial to creamy suits, academic logorrhea, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe; in short, he's a dandy--a Bible Belt fop soiling a dying Mississippi town. He is also, or so he claims, a criminal mastermind, though judging from his latest criminal undertaking you might easily label him a delusional idiot.
Said caper is the pilfering of millions from a riverboat casino, which will involve tunneling, masonry work, and a gaggle of dunderheads. These dunderheads, brought together by an advertisement Goldthwait placed in a local newspaper, run the gamut from partial incompetence to outright stupidity. There is Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans), a would-be hoodlum whose lack of street cred is painfully transparent; Garth Pancake (J. K. Simmons), a former civil rights activist now saddled with irritable bowel syndrome; Lump (Ryan Hurst), a giant whose head is as thick as a milkshake; and the mysterious General (Tzi Ma), a chain-smoking "tunneling expert" from Indochina. Their scheme: Under the guise of a "Renaissance musical group," the team will tunnel from the cellar of a house near the casino and make off with the loot--a decent plan, perhaps, but one sure to combust given the pedigree involved.
The owner of the cellar is a stern, devoted black woman named Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall). Bow-legged and known to complain about the "hippity-hop music," Marva spends her days in church-related activities, and her evenings knitting before a glowering portrait of her deceased husband. At first glance, Marva appears to be as thick as the thieves looking to abuse her cellar (she is so religious she takes great pride in a monthly check of five dollars she sends to Bob Jones University, apparently oblivious to the university's preference for things lily-white), but her fervor and strict morality prove to be rather capable foils for Goldthwait and his cronies. She is supremely devoted to two things--her faith and her husband--and sinful tomfoolery like smoking, cussing, and, in the end, larceny, do not sit well on her hunched shoulders.
Goldthwait and his men, of course, are all about such tomfoolery, and once their plan goes predictably awry (thanks to both a tea party and an ineptness with explosives), they are forced to consider what they'd previously wished to shy away from--and The Ladykillers begins to earn its title. This is surely familiar Coen Brothers territory--the siblings have always taken great joy in killing off characters, after all--but this time around, alas, the pair appear not to be at their sharpest. And while normally this wouldn't be so troubling (thanks in no small part to the adage that a weak Coen Brothers movie is still better than most of the slop fed to us at the trough), coming as it is hot on the lame heels of Intolerable Cruelty, you would be forgiven for thinking the Coens are slipping. So much of The Ladykillers is clunky and, in a true surprise, unoriginal, that the whole endeavor, while certainly entertaining and watchable, still feels like a failure.
It's possible, of course, that I am setting the mark too high for the Coens. They are, after all, (apparently) human. But with the likes of Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski on their resumés, it's hard not to expect more from them. For years the Coens have been one of the few dashes of hope from an increasingly gloomy and unoriginal art form, and their recent misses are rather alarming. What's happening to them? It may be possible that they're simply running out of ideas (The Ladykillers is a remake), but I can't help but suspect that the true culprit may reside with a craving for mass consumption. Hence the appearance of Tom Hanks--not a terrible actor, by any means, but not the proper Coen type. Unlike George Clooney, who appears to fit the brothers snugly (he was by far the only great thing in Intolerable Cruelty, outright shaming the bland Catherine Zeta-Jones in every scene), Hanks is far too square and safe for them, no matter the thickness of his drawl, and his presence seems to have led the filmmakers to water the film down.
The Ladykillers may prove to be the Coen Brothers' first blockbuster (what they surely hoped Intolerable Cruelty would have been), but this kind of fortune has deep conse- quences. Like many people, I have often dreamed that the brothers would one day be embraced by a massive audience, but that dream was pegged upon their not deviating from their talent. The Ladykillers, sadly, is a weak effort on their part (when the pair resort to using cheesy wipes, à la Star Wars, to transition between scenes, warning flares surely begin to fire), and despite what few strokes of brilliance it may contain, the final product is far too cumbersome and far too lazy. It is, in the end, decent slop, but it's slop nonetheless.
