Ladykillers

Boy, I’ve only left the cinema during a movie twice now, one of the cases being the new “Ladykillers” which is a remake of the 1955 original. (For the curious: The second occasion was a sneak preview which turned out to be some brother slaughtering horror flick.)

I usually rather like the Coen brothers and also Tom Hanks. But this was just boring XX(. Just like in the original, hardly anything seems to happen during the film. But while the original still has charme and is somehow cute, the Coen brothers fancied simple, rude, and crude humor as a stylistic means. This totally destroys anything which could be charming or cute in the movie. A film doesn’t become funny just by repeating “You brought your fucking pussy to this meeting?” about 7 times in a row.

Also the professor (Tom Hanks) is a rather pseudo-intellectual blathering idiot, which comes neither across as a real charming smart guy, nor as a mean mischievous criminal. Just talking in a stilted, overblown way and citing Edgar Allen Poe doesn’t make him a convincing character.

One of the more humorous moments was when a Chinese stuck two fingers up the nose of a shop robber who says, “he’s got his fingers behind my eyes.” But all in all, this is neither an exiting movie, nor is it a really funny comedy, nor is it charming because the characters are.

Eventually, we left the movies during the inter-film break, which is a (unfortunately) common thing here in Switzerland and spend the time watering the flowers at home, which was much more entertaining.