Detailed item info | Movie description | It is always difficult to try to recreate a classic movie, so Joel and Ethan Coen took the premise of Alexander Mackendrick's beloved 1955 Ealing Studio caper comedy, THE LADYKILLERS, as the basis for coming up with their own entertaining and bizarre remake. Tom Hanks stars as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D., a would-be professor who talks his way into the root cellar of Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall), where he and his supposed band will practice their "Renaissance music." But they are actually plotting to tunnel through to steal a mint from a riverboat casino. The motley crew of incompetent criminals includes Marlon Wayans as Gawain MacSam, a hip-hoppity thug pretending to be a janitor; J.K. Simmons as movie prop man and demolition "expert" Garth Pancake, who has problems with intestinal bowel syndrome; Tzi Ma as the General, a Vietnamese tunnel rat with a Hitler mustache; and Ryan Hurst as a pathetically dumb football wannabe named Lump. Just when they think all is going well, they run into a curious Mrs. Munson, who smells something funny. The film includes several exhilarating Gospel scenes set in southern churches, and lots of riotous site gags. The Coen brothers have done it yet again.
| | Credits | | Producer: | Barry Sonnenfeld, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Tom Jacobson | | Cast: | George Wallace, Irma P. Hall, Tzi Ma |
| | Details | | Edition: | Widescreen |
| | Notes | DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Dolby Digital 5.1 - French
Additional Release Material:
Featurette - 1. Danny Ferrington: The Man Behind the Band
Additional Footage - 1. The Slap Reel - Outtakes
2. Gospel of THE LADYKILLERS - Deleted Music Scenes
DVD-ROM Features:
THE LADYKILLERS Script Scanner
| | Editorial reviews | "What keeps the movie going - aside from the rambunctious performances of Ms. Hall and Mr. Hanks - is the Coens' obsessive devotion to the American vernacular."
New York Times - A. O. Scott (03/26/2004)
"[Hanks] works energetically to find the character under the costume and he plows through the screenplay's reams of purple prose with sonorous dexterity."
Los Angeles Times - Manohla Dargis (03/26/2004)
"[A]n enjoyably screwy, mad-as-a-hatter remake of the 1955 Alec Guinness comedy."
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (04/02/2004)
"Those seeking a quirky and clever comedy should hightail it to THE LADYKILLERS..."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (03/26/2004)
"The dialogue is predictably a treat..."
Sight and Sound - Ben Walters (07/01/2004)
"[D]elightful....[T]he Coens' stylish touch manages to give a holy aura to both the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and a garbage dump in the middle of the Mississippi."
Premiere - Premiere Staff (10/01/2004)
| | Awards | 2004 Cannes, Jury Prize
|
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