 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
The Ladykillers
- Review Date: September 6, 2004
- R
- Genre: Comedy
- 2004
Common Sense Media says
Some wicked pleasures for mature teens and adults.
Parents say
QUALITY
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that the main characters are criminals who lie, steal, and kill, all played for comedy. They drink, smoke, and use extremely strong language, including sexual references and the "N" word.
What's the story?
In THE LADYKILLERS, Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, PhD. (Tom Hanks), a man who dresses like Colonel Sanders but whose rhetorical flourishes are as tangled as a kudzu vine. Dorr rents a room from Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall) and tells her that he and his band want to use her cellar to practice their music. His real plan is to tunnel from her house to a nearby riverboat casino so that they can rob it. He puts together a less than crackerjack team, including experts in ordnance Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons) and The General (Tzi Ma), Lump (Ryan Hurst), a big guy for the heavy lifting, and McSam (Marlon Wayans), a janitor at the casino. Mrs. Munson is an upstanding, proper church-going woman who may not understand the details of what is going on around her, but she knows right from wrong. She is as quick to insist on good behavior as she is to offer her cinnamon cookies. The fun is in seeing a sweet little "Land o' Goshen"-ing lady innocently foiling the plans of the would-be criminal masterminds.
Is it any good?
Tom Hanks and the Coen brothers take the title and the concept from the 1955 English black comedy classic. They may miss the primary point (and joke) of the original, and they tone down their usual corkscrew dialogue and mordant humor, but they still manage to provide some wicked pleasures. The Coens love characters who are sweet but not very bright, especially when they manage to foil characters who are crooked but not very bright. And Hanks likes to play against his type as the all-American guy we'd like living next door.
The movie is set in an idyllic Mississippi town somewhere between Mayberry and a Norman Rockwell painting and some time gently nestled between the Depression and hip-hop. The humor comes from a colorful assortment of injuries, ailments, and casualties, along with some choice dialogue. If the Coens and Hanks are a little too far outside the boundaries of their best work, their second-and third-best is also watchable, at least for those who find a professor with bad teeth and a big vocabulary, a dog with a gas mask, a cat with a severed finger, and a garbage scow with a dead body funny.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about whether it is true that no one gets hurt when insurance pays for the stolen goods.
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AGE
Time for you to rob the video store
I don't think anything was TOO bad for this movie. If anything, it's the language. Besides that, it is a good remake, and a great comedy for all ages. I say on for 14 and up, due to the fact that younger children might not understand how using the "n" word might effect others.
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| Studio: | Touchstone Pictures |
| Director: | Joel Coen |
| Cast: | J.K. Simmons, Marlon Wayans, Tom Hanks |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Run time: | 104 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | March 25, 2004 |
| DVD release date: | September 6, 2004 |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | language including sexual references |
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