Perfectly entertaining Ladykillers

The Ladykillers is bombastic, brash, overblown, completely implausible, obscene, offensive and utterly hilarious.

Joel and Ethan Coen, the directorial team behind such quirky masterpieces as Fargo, The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn't There, once again prove that they have what it takes to make any movie great. Their remake of a 1955 version of The Ladykillers is the first brilliant movie of 2004.

Set in the heart of the Deep South, the film opens with a lonely old widow, Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall) talking to the portrait of her late husband. Unexpectedly, Professor Goldswain H. Dorr, Ph.D. (Tom Hanks), arrives on her doorstep, drawn by the offer of a room for rent. The two don't exactly hit it off – Munson is a small-town woman obsessed with Jesus and her cat Pickles, while Dorr is a vaguely sinister atheist who is more verbose than a dictionary. When he introduces himself as a Ph.D., her response is "Like Elmer Fudd?"

She rents Dorr the room, and is soon introduced to his "band." They persuade her to let them use her root cellar for band practice, claiming to play Renaissance-period music. However, the band is in fact a criminal gang planning to rob a riverboat casino's safe by tunneling under her house. The gang is a bizarrely diverse group. There's The General (Tzi Ma), a martial-arts expert who looks like a cross between Hitler and Chairman Mao, as well as Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans), a trash-talking janitor with a mouth dirtier than a landfill. Rounding out the crew are explosives expert Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons) and football player Lump Hudson (Ryan Hurst), who's taken a few too many blows to the head.

Then The Ladykillers' plot unfolds from there, with the criminals quickly becoming more and more flustered and desperate as Munson's honest, God-fearing ways threaten to undo their entire brilliant plan. When she finally discovers them, the gang decides that she must be taken care of – but none of them want to be the lady-killer.

The Ladykillers is a fantastic dark crime comedy comparable to Guy Ritchie's Snatch, both of which manage to make robberies, severed digits and even murder hilarious. Admirably, the Coen brothers don't try to force anything more complicated or deep from their comedy. Each of the characters is a simple stereotype – the batty, sweet old Grandmammy Munson or the viciously race-conscious janitor, for example. This means that there is no character development to complicate things, which keeps the plot nice and simple. The movie thrives on the interactions and conflicts between these stereotyped characters as they bumble their way towards the perfect crime.

The movie could score either high or low marks for plot, depending on one's perspective. The back-story is never really explained, leaving the audience to wonder how this improbable group of thieves ever got assembled in the first place. Also, the ending feels very deus ex machina: an entirely too neat and completely improbable series of events occur to wrap up the movie. Some people may see this finish as a cop-out or a weak finale, but it is consistent with the rest of The Ladykillers' non-real feel, and most likely will keep audiences laughing right up to the credits.

Tom Hanks deserves special mention for his outstanding performance. He completely transforms himself and becomes the stuffy, conniving Professor G.H. Dorr, Ph.D. His wordiness and pompous air is endearing even at its most pronounced. Everyone else in the cast plays their parts quite capably, showing excellent comic timing and great chemistry as a cast. The great performances are also complemented well (though quirkily) by an energetic gospel soundtrack. The Ladykillers is the first brilliant movie of 2004, and a definite comedic success.

The Ladykillers is rated R for language.