Continuing the Coen brothers’ ongoing flirtation with something resembling the ‘mainstream’, this wholly unexpected remake of Alexander Mackendrick’s 1955 screwball comedy The Ladykillers is a real curiosity. Lazy, languid and effortlessly likeable, it’s also probably less consistently impressive than anything the brothers have yet put their name to. All things are relative, of course, and even the first underwhelming Coens movie in living memory has more to offer than most of the summer’s releases (especially in an even-numbered year, where international football tournaments ensure an avalanche of deeply braindead chick-flicks). Still, diehards should steel themselves for potential disappointment.
Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans aside, it’s an unusually anonymous cast, with Hanks’ preposterously over-educated Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr PhD leading a motley troupe of fugitives and cons who take refuge in the crypt-like basement of a formidable large black southern lady (Irma P.Hall, not at all far removed in demeanour from Martin Lawrence in Big Momma’s House). While Goldthwait’s ridiculously eloquent pontificating – full of ‘forthwith’s and ‘forsooth’s – provides the entirety of the entertainment, his comrades-in-crime are nothing like as perfectly-formed as, say, The Big Lebowski’s bowling crew. Most of their exchanges contain episodes of forced slapstick humour that border on the downright weak: Marlon Wayans does little but mutter ‘whatsup, nigger?’ to every living thing he encounters, and you really have to wonder what’s up when the Coens are forced to resort to Irritable Bowel Syndrome as a running gag.
For all The Ladykillers’ niggling flaws, it’s still far more eccentric and interesting fare than the Hollywood norm, with the brothers’ increasingly fervent appreciation of Southern gospel music yielding the kind of soundtrack that sends purists into raptures. Hanks gives us probably the most intriguing performance of his career – every time he smiles, he looks more sinister still - and if that isn’t persuasion enough, there’s a Bruce Campbell cameo.
More crowd-pleasing and (whisper) commercial than the brothers’ finest outings, the fact remains that even their lesser offerings are there for us to feast upon. Quietly recommended.