The Ladykillers
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 1.5
Remake of the Mackendrick-Guinness film has a few things going for it - namely the irresistible charm of Southern professor Tom Hanks and the F-bomb mastery of Marlon Wayans - but is more along the lines of The Hudsucker Proxy in terms of humor: it thinks it's funny even when you don't. Granted, it's a significant step up from the alarmingly bad Intolerable Cruelty but still far from the truly great black humor of Fargo, with which the Brothers Coen last found success. Bank robberies are all the rage these days and this is no doubt inspired by Ocean's Eleven, but Soderbergh's movie, warts and all, at least remembered that it had to be more about the robbery than presenting caricatures of people or just playing goofy.
