MOVIE REVIEW: Hanks shines in dark ‘Ladykillers’
Grade: B
Although this movie is flawed, its moments of brilliance outshine the dark spots.
Not that the film doesn’t intend to have dark spots. But this black comedy could have been even blacker without the slapstick.
The premise: Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall), her legs permanently bow-legged, attends church faithfully, sings along gleefully with the choir and sends $5 a month to Bob Jones University. In a performance that’s better than the movie itself, Tom Hanks creates a talkative, but never tiresome, Southern professor of “dead languages.” A motley team of criminals, gathered by Hanks’ “Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III, PhD,” seem to be the kind of people who exist only in movies. These men are caricatures of characters, proving that the Coens may be trying too hard to force-feed comedy when they should be slipping it into your
coffee.
Also, I could tell these criminals would never be together were it not for the caper. The explosive expert, the grunt worker and others team up on a mission: Dig an underground tunnel to the room that houses the gambling profits of a New Orleans riverboat. Each time Hall comes down to bring some cookies or tell them about church, they have to hide instantly what they’re doing by posing as a chamber ensemble. Their inside guy is Marlon Wayans, a self-proclaimed “bunkie junkie” who almost ruins the ploy by voicing his appreciation for a customer’s bootylicious assets and getting fired.
This plan, of course, is nothing new. Like other heist films “Oceans 11” or Woody Allen’s underrated “Small Time Crooks,” I knew that the real movie was to be found in the details. So, I enjoyed some of the humor, the good old American gospel music, and the non-stop garrulousness of Hanks.
Hanks plays a character unlike anything he’s done before. He is a true-blue sesquipedalian speaker, a pedant full of pompous pretentiousness. To understand the definitions of those words, reread that sentence.
It’s refreshing to see him set aside his classic American Everyman image to become a dastardly, delightful villain. His performance was so charmingly Vaudevillian you almost want to hiss when he appears on screen, then shut up and wait for some of the best lines of the year.
“The old woman was a more formidable antagonist than one had imagined,” says Hanks, lamenting that their plan doesn’t go off without a hitch.
“This is most irregular,” he puzzles while other characters scream the f-word at each other.
One thing I love about black comedies where the lowlifes are the protagonists is the question of who you root for. Hanks gets the most screen time, and the old lady is probably next. The strange juxtaposition between the churchgoer and the evildoer is accentuated by their unlikely relationship, in which she sits and knits and talks to a painting of her late husband and Hanks reads Poe.
I’m afraid, however, that this movie is mainly for die-hard Coen brothers fans. They will get what they want, although ultimately the craziness of the characters and a few “yeah, right” moments in the story keep it away from the deadpan perfection of “Fargo.”
My only real complaint with the movie is its unhealthful venture into gross-out slapstick. It’s almost as if a Coen brother wrote and directed this one with a Farrelly brother. A dog in a commercial is asphyxiated by a gas mask, only to receive mouth-to-mouth from Mr. Pancake, the explosives guy. (Remember the unfortunate canine in “There’s Something About Mary?”) And Mr. Pancake’s irritable bowel syndrome, which strikes, of course, at the worst possible times, is reminiscent of Harry Dunn’s diarrhea/relief scene which will surely be used one day in the long-awaited Jeff Daniels roast.
Not that I don’t enjoy slapstick. But, it added an unnecessary childish element to the wicked humor of this movie. Maybe the Coen brothers wanted a “gray” comedy. Such a farce should rely on dialogue, and it does so in the Hanks/Hall scenes.
With Hanks, this movie has a healthy life ahead of it. Without him, it might have been pronounced dead on arrival.
Mark LaRocco is a senior majoring in print/broadcast journalism. Comments may be sent to him at marklarocco@yahoo.com.