The FiFi Report 052

The Ladykillers by The Coen Bros
The Coen Brothers do great movies so we couldn’t wait to see this one, especially because it has Tom Hanks playing a kooky professor. But all the way through all I could think about was George Clooney. Sure, it happens every time I sit in the dark but he should have been cast as the villain professor in this movie instead of Tom. Better to look at for sure, and he would have been funnier. Tom plays it too straight. Sorry Tom. Apparently this is a remake of a caper comedy from the 50’s, and is set in Mississippi with Tom playing “Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D., a would-be professor who talks his way into the root cellar of Mrs. Munson 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 all sorts of stereotypes from the mother f**cker hip hop black guy to a kooky demolition expert with irritable bowl syndrome. Mmm that can only mean one thing: fart jokes. Oh yeh people were laughing, killing themselves laughing. They were probably 15 year old boys. I’m with A.O Scott from The NYT who says “The heist plot is mighty tired, and the Coens don’t really bother to revive it. Instead, they confect an uneven shaggy-dog joke, with a handful of pricelessly funny moments and a splendid and sublime gospel soundtrack” Yes, buy the CD and get Intolerable Cruelty out on video.