Product Description

Academy Award(R)-winning Tom Hanks (Best Actor, FORREST GUMP, 1994; PHILADELPHIA, 1993) turns in a hilariously original performance in THE LADYKILLERS, the laugh-out-loud comedy that explodes with outrageous wit and slapstick humor from the Coen Brothers (O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, FARGO). Underneath Professor G.H. Dorr's (Hanks) silver-tongued southern gentleman persona is a devious criminal who has assembled a motley gang of thieves to commit the heist of the century by tunneling through his churchgoing landlady's root cellar to a casino's vault of riches. But these cons are far from pros. As their scheme begins blowing up in their faces, their landlady smells a rat. And when she threatens to call the police, they figure they'll just bump her off. After all, how hard can that be? Wickedly funny from start to finish, it would be a crime to miss THE LADYKILLERS.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26250 in DVD
• Brand: HANKS,TOM
• Released on: 2004-09-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English, Vietnamese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Amazon.com
If you've never enjoyed Alec Guinness in the classic 1955 British comedy that inspired it, the Coen brothers' remake of The Ladykillers may well prove hilarious. For starters, it's got Tom Hanks in a variation of the Guinness role, eccentrically channeling Colonel Sanders, Tennessee Williams, and Edgar Allan Poe in his southern-fried performance as Prof. Goldthwait Higgins Dorr, Ph.D. (named after an actual arts institute curator from the Coens' native Minnesota), a deliciously verbose con man who needs a secret headquarters for his five-man plot to rob a riverboat casino moored on the Mississippi. In the film's funniest and least-caricatured role (and even she can't elude the Coens' comedic stereotyping), Irma P. Hall plays the churchgoing widow who rents a room to Dorr, whose crew of "musicians" (in keeping with the original's plot) use the lady's root cellar to tunnel to the casino's cash-rich counting room. Rampant mishaps ensue, the body count rises among Dorr's band of idiots (including Marlon Wayans, spouting nonstop profanities), and the Coens put their uniquely stylish stamp on everything. It's a funny movie, allowing for some nagging flatness to the material, but if you've seen the original (and other vintage comedies from the heyday of Britain's low-budget Ealing Studios), you'll eventually wonder, what were they thinking? Accounting for all the qualities that grace any Coen movie (this being the first time the brothers have officially shared directorial credit), this revamped Ladykillers is a mixed blessing, both entertaining and superfluous. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
An elderly lady (Irma P. Hall) lives with her memories, her cat, and her scandalized view of youth. Into her life comes a courteous (and presumably bogus) professor (Tom Hanks), who needs a room to rent and a cellar in which to make sweet music. That, at any rate, is his excuse, his true intent being to tunnel through from below to the vault of a nearby cASINo. The plot will be familiar to anybody versed in Ealing comedy (the original movie, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, and graced with the same title, came out in 1955), but the existence of this new version is harder to explain. It was made by the Coen brothers, whose own taste for slight provincial surrealism veers close to that of Mackendrick, but, far from refining his work, they have devised one of their coarsest pictures to date. Its grasp of time and place is, by their standard, weirdly unstable, and the supporting players, among them Marlon Wayans, J. K. Simmons, and Ryan Hurst, cannot hope to match the fooling of Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, and Herbert Lom in the earlier film. Hanks gives his all, but the movie deflates around him; there is even what one hesitates to call a running gag, based on irritable bowels. Is that what the creators of "Fargo" now consider funny? -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Leonard Maltin, HOT TICKET
"A laugh-out-loud movie that’s quintessential Coen Brothers."

Customer Reviews

Remake? Mainstream? So what - it is a great fun:
I could not stop laughing and enjoyed it tremendously. Tom Hanks was simply delightful pretending to be refined, highly educated, charmingly polite and smooth talking Rococo music lover Professor G.H.Darr who in reality was a very dangerous, ruthless and devious criminal that assembled the most hilarious gang of thieves (each has his special talent) to dig the tunnel through his landlady's root cellar to a casino vault and to steal 1.6 million dollars. As good as Hanks was, he was completely upstaged by Irma Hall who steals the movie as Marva. She received many awards for her acting and very deservingly. I know that many Coens' fans don't like The Ladykillers because
1. it is a remake of the 1955 movie with the same title and
2. because it is one of their most mainstream films.
I don't care - "The Ladykillers" has Coens' signatures all over - it is very funny, very dark, and uniquely beautiful visually - just remember the opening scene with two scary gargoyles and the garbage barge.

A Serious Disappointment.
Well, my major problem with The Ladykillers is that it was made by the Coen brothers who are the finest filmmakers in the world this side of Marty Scorsese. This has to be the only movie they've made which I'd describe as being below average, and that's really all that it is. The Ladykillers is not a bad movie, but considering the quality of its creators, its mediocrity comes as quite a shock. I don't agree with the other reviewers in regards to Tom Hanks. I think he gives a credible performance. I think the production's real problem is a result of its low quality plot. The original film with Alec Guinness was not great and attempting to update it was not advisable. Personally, I hope that this movie is just a mulligan for the Coen brothers and not a reflection of their diminishing genius. Everyone is entitled to a mistake once in awhile and no better word embodies The Ladykillers.

Tom Hanks has done better.
I won't prejudge this effort vs the original from 1955 that I plan to see this evening for the first time. So it is on it's own... for now. Yes, Tom Hanks, is Prof. G.H. Dorr, & he seems to be playing a sleazy, smarmy, criminal Col. Saunders. He is the best thing in the movie. With the help from Irma Hall as Mavis, his old god-fearing landlady they try to float this lead balloon. The professor & his gang of idiots are going to tunnel from Mavis' cellar to the nearby casino's money room. Things go awry & they have to kill her when she become suspicious. Now the story goes up a notch (or star) as one by one they try to kill her. Hanks is good even when he's bad or rather his material is less than good. Lot's of profanity doesn't make it funnier nor does the other junvenile humor. The Coen Brothers have also done better. Okay, since I did laugh a couple of times I can go ***.