Ladykillers

Of course it's not among the Coens' best, and it's also not as good as the original The Ladykillers, but this wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it would be.

JK Simmons, Tzi Ma, and Irma P Hall were all pretty great, it's visually quite nice looking (once you get past the fairly ugly CGI-heavy opening), and there are a few genuinely funny moments, even if the main plot takes a while to actually unfold, and there are certainly some contrivances/logical flaws.

Still, the Coens are great at making dark comedies about stupid and/or arrogant getting wrapped up in criminal activity - see The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, and Fargo. This one certainly isn't as good as any of them, but I think there's enough good stuff here to recommend to fans of the Coen Brothers.

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.

As a remake this movie falls flat, as a stand alone movie its not too bad and will appeal more to a younger audience and probably mostly American one at that.

Here is the problem with remakes - If you make it exactly like the original then there is little point in remaking it, if you just change the country what is the point when the dialogue and the setting is the exact same almost, with a few words changed here and there... Coupling UK and Coupling USA is a good example... and also maybe Life on Mars. Of course these are TV shows but the comparison stands.

They made this movie very different to the original and shouldn't have called it a remake, or even The Ladykillers. In no way does this resemble the original, which is a classic and is still watchable today but set far in the past when TVs were black and white... is it better than this movie if you are comparing them as the same movie... the original blows this away without a doubt.

So bare that in mind when watching this movie. I wouldn't compare these movies at all, to be honest they are far too different to compare, the only comparison i can come up with is that they have the same name and some of the characters are similar... the scenario is quite different except that they are both about stealing money.

Not a bad or great movie by any means, and i think Hanks character tried to be like the Alec Guinness one, a little strange, and it didn't quite work, for me anyway...

A group of thieves disguised as musicians hiding out in a sweet old lady's house sounds like a pretty hysterical premise for a movie, and Alec Guiness proved it was in the original film.

The new version, however, only demonstrates how you can start out with a great premise and completely destroy it.

While Hank's performance was funny, it certainly didn't out way all the foul language and meaningless interludes that were supposed to "modernize" the movie. The director and/or writers obviously missed the point and charm of the other movie.

If you like the sound of the plot, don't see this movie, stick with the classic. Let's not change a good thing.

A fun little movie that is a good distraction in the time of Covid. Great to see Tom Hanks playing a villain. Who would expect that?

Some laugh out loud slapstick, some fun characters but definitely not up to the Coen Brothers usual standards