‘The Ladykillers’ is about half bad

PEGGY ROGERS

To get the audience laughing, comedies rely on putting extreme

characters into extreme situations. The Coen brothers, the

writers/directors of “The Ladykillers,” fill their black comedy with

unexpected extreme surprises of people in unusual circumstances.

Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, PhD (Tom Hanks) is a

smooth-talking Southern gentleman, a professed musicologist, who is

actually a thief by trade. His landlady, Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall),

is a churchgoing devout widow able to smell trouble quicker than a

police dog at a drug bust, without being able to know exactly where

it’s coming from. The unlikely pairing of Dorr masterminding a

riverboat casino heist under Marva’s roof and her constant watch over

him and his bumbling gang of crooks holds a lot of promise. When the

action stays between the professor and his landlady, the film works.

Once the action shifts to the supporting characters, however, the

story stalls.

The explosives expert with missing digits, the quick and deadly

martial artist afraid of a woman and the dumbest thief of the group

are extremely cartoonish in nature compared to the black comedy tone

set by Dorr and Munson. The supporting characters inhabit a different

physical universe than the professor and Marva. Like cartoon

characters, they get beat up, smacked around and blown up without

deadly consequences. The no-real-harm-done effect does set up the

surprising turn of events, but it’s an extremely long wait for the

payoff.

The supporting characters are given a lot of screen time to set up

the film’s last laugh. The Coen brothers employ a heavy hand to make

sure everyone in the audience is following the setup by covering the

same action repeatedly for each of the four crooks on Dorr’s crew.

It’s like rewinding the DVD to watch the same scene again, which is

disruptive to the forward movement of the story.

Hanks plays Goldthwait with such enthusiasm and a zeal that stands

out like a flashlight in an underground tunnel. Watching the

professor -- who resembles a cross between the Kentucky Fried Chicken

Colonel and a nervous Nellie -- sweet talk Marva using 50% charm and

50% manure is hilarious. Every time Dorr pours on his charm and lies

to Marva followed by her giving him the once-over, that’s when “The

Ladykillers” starts pouring on the laughs.

“Fargo” was the Coen brothers largest commercial box-office draw

to date. “The Ladykillers,” like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” has a

strong Southern flavor rooted so firmly in the past that the comedy

won’t appeal to the general audience. While the comedy rule of

extremes works extremely well in the film, it’s the only element that

does. Like Dorr, the movie is charming, but only 50% of the time.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.