Intermission: Coen brothers strike again in hilarious 'Ladykillers'

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Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.|ret||ret||tab|

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"I am just a vagabond, a drifter on the run. Eloquent profanity, it rolls right off my tongue."|ret||ret||tab|

So wrote the late Lowell George in his song, "Roll Um Easy," recorded in 1973 by Little Feat.|ret||ret||tab|

The phrase "eloquent profanity" and that song came to my mind a few minutes into the Coen brothers' latest black comedy, "The Ladykillers." While the film is based on one of the famed Ealing comedies that came out of Great Britain in the 1950s, this version has the Coens' fingerprints all over it.|ret||ret||tab|

Like Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and a lot of the new generation of film-makers, the Coens are not only creators of the art, but fans and students of the film idiom as well. |ret||ret||tab|

Every shot from the opening of a garbage island, a gargoyle and a raven, to the ending, which features a garbage barge (these garbage barges play a big part in the film) is a well-planned joy. It's obvious that these guys love movies and understand the things that make films tick.|ret||ret||tab|

The Coens also have a rather unsettling way with making murder and mayhem seem hilarious. Even their "serious" films, such as their debut effort, "Blood Simple," made audiences laugh, however guiltily, at things that were, in fact, horrific. |ret||ret||tab|

And the wood-chipper scene in "Fargo" is the funniest dismemberment ever committed to film.|ret||ret||tab|

With "The Ladykillers," the Coen brothers have abandoned all of their previous stable of cast members. Frances McDormand isn't here, nor is William H. Macy. They have, though, enlisted a lively group which runs the gamut from superstar Tom Hanks to the relatively unknown Irma P. Hall. |ret||ret||tab|

Hall manages to steal every scene in which she appears. That's no small feat when up against as talented and likable actor as Hanks. She has captured the Coens' ethos in the same way that makes McDormand and Macy so great in their films. |ret||ret||tab|

Then there's Hanks as "Professor" Goldthwait Higginson Dorr. |ret||ret||tab|

"Profess" he does. This character is as far removed from Hanks' role of Forrest Gump as is imaginable. G.H. Dorr is a divine master of B.S. (and I don't mean bachelor of science), not seen since the likes of Robert Preston's Harold Hill in "The Music Man."|ret||ret||tab|

The Coens give Hanks great dialog to work with, and Edgar Allan Poe supplies many of Dorr's most eloquent dissertations. |ret||ret||tab|

The professor rents a room in the home of Miss Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall). He tells her he is the leader of a musical group that he will be rehearsing, if she permits, in her cellar. Miss Munson has some simple rules: No smoking and no "hippity-hop" music. |ret||ret||tab|

What Dorr really has assembled is a gang that has plans to dig a tunnel from Marva's cellar to the offices of the local gambling boat, "The Bandit Queen," with the intention of stealing a few million dollars.|ret||ret||tab|

Dorr's crew is a colorful mish-mash of stereotypical crooks. |ret||ret||tab|

Marlan Wayans is Gawain MacSam, the jive-talking inside man. J.K. Simmons (from HBO's "Oz") is Garth Pancake, the demolition expert. Tzi Ma is The General, a tunneling expert for the Viet Cong, who also has the unique and much-needed talent of sticking a lit cigarette under his tongue. Ryan Hurst is Lump, the extremely dimwitted muscle of the outfit who, near the end, almost makes complete sense in one scene. |ret||ret||tab|

It's the Coens' writing that gives these characters their power.|ret||ret||tab|

The group make a great gang, but a rather awful band and Miss Munson eventually grows suspicious of the whole lot.|ret||ret||tab|

After the caper is complete, she discovers what has been going on and despite Dorr's most extremely concocted explanations demands they return the money and come to church with her to repent.|ret||ret||tab|

As bad as that sounds, what becomes of the gang, one by one, is even worse. It's also hilarious. |ret||ret||tab|

Pickles (Munson's cat) absconds with a finger. Garbage barges increasingly appear and the picture of Munson's late husband, Othar, looms more menacingly as the film reaches its finale.|ret||ret||tab|

In their most commercially successful film, "O, Brother! Where Art Thou?," the Coens sparked a revival of classic bluegrass music. In "The Ladykillers" they use black gospel music to great effect, and I only hope that fact may encourage people to pursue this kind of music as well. |ret||ret||tab|

The Coens' remake of "The Ladykillers" is a hilarious, sometimes dark, perfectly scripted comedy that works on a lot of levels. The uninitiated will enjoy it on its very funny surface level and movie lovers will appreciate its finesse.|ret||ret||tab|

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