The Ladykillers (2004)

Starts out quite funny, but the paper-thin caricatures that we get for characters grow wearying very quickly, and the running jokes that tend to be the linchpins in the Coens' comedic endeavors are mostly lame and underthought here -- I mean, really... irritable bowel syndrome? Who thought that was funny? (I will admit, though, that I laughed my balls off at the unstated punchline to the Bob Jones University thread.) Tom Hanks and (especially) Irma Hall are game and turn in fine performances, but they're let down by the material; Marlon Wayans is supremely irritating and his character could get the Coens accused of racism if A) everyone in the film weren't equally one-dimensional and B) I didn't suspect that the film is really a sly dig at the tradition of Southern gentility serving as a mask for racism. The first Coen Brothers film that I've advised people to skip.

Grade: C+