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Parents' Guide to

The Ladykillers

By Nell Minow, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Some wicked pleasures for mature teens and adults.

Movie R 2004 104 minutes
The Ladykillers Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 12+

Based on 2 parent reviews

Jim24
Jim24 Adult
January 19, 2019
age 10+
There’s language, that’s about it. Not worth watching.
Prosaiche
Prosaiche Adult
October 23, 2011
age 14+

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.
See all 2 parent reviews

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?

Our review:
Parents say (2 ):
Kids say (2 ):

This lively film provides some wicked pleasures. 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 it's still enjoyable. 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.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about whether it is true that no one gets hurt when insurance pays for the stolen goods.

Movie Details

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