The Ladykillers

Review by Zachary Keith Parker

    Ethan and Joel Coen return with The Ladykillers, after their previous film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? However, many critics and audiences alike left the theater disappointed. Why? Mostly because it was not as dramatic as O Brother, relying on a different style of humor effectuated by a much more sinister cast of characters.

    Without a doubt, it was not as good as O Brother’s hysterical, lively, and profound tale of redemption. Nevertheless, I the Coen Brother’s most recent feature film does not pretend to be O Brother. Instead, The Ladykillers is a simply told movie, with complex characters and a moral dilemma complicated by seemingly paradoxical characters.

    Tom Hanks plays Professor G.H. Dorr, a southern professor, steeped in the classics and literature of Edgar Allan Poe (watch for many allusions to Poe’s stories). Hanks’ classicistic professor was an absolute pleasure to watch, and without Tom Hanks as Dorr, Ladykillers would have needed a heart transplant.

    With a heart of deceit, Professor Dorr asks Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall), an elderly black lady, full of soul and morality, and empty of any intelligence, to rent a room in her house and use her basement for a “musical ensemble.” She unwittingly agrees, and the audience is introduced to the casino janitor, Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans); film handyman and explosives expert with IBS, Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons), Korean military expert, The General (Tzi Ma); and the football hunk, Lump (played by Remember the Titans’ Ryan Hurst). 

    Soon we learn that Dorr plans to only pretend to play music, while they dig a tunnel into the casino offices a few hundred feet away underground and steal the money.

    While the movie’s story is predictable, its focus is not on the story as much as it is on the characters, and on the soul-saving morality of Mrs. Munson compared to the arrogant emptiness of Dorr’s classicism.

    In O Brother, Everett’s cold, scientific rationalism blinded him to the Providence of the Lord, and in Ladykillers, Dorr’s humanism blinds him to everything but himself. Dorr's classicism without a strong biblical worldview leads to humanism, a worldview relying only upon a man’s reason and knowledge.

    It could be said that the Coen Brothers’ representation of Everett’s rationalism and Dorr’s humanism is intentional. These examples show us the dangers of falling into either the appalling blindness of rationalism, or the supercilious notions of humanism.

    In contrast to Dorr, Proverbs 9:10-12 reads, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by me your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself, and if you scoff, you will bear it alone.”

    The character Marva Munson has no intellectual knowledge, but she has knowledge of the Holy One, and that fills her with wisdom. It also gives her a spirit of service, as she informs Dorr at one point that she sends $5 monthly to Bob Jones University because they’re a “good Christian school.”

    On the other hand, Professor Dorr, wise in his own eyes, is as Solomon tells us, wise only for himself. We're told that it is better to have no knowledge at all, than to have knowledge falsely based in anything but God. Hence, through the Marva vs. Dorr example, the Coens reveal Ladykiller’s theme: all you need is God (Beatle-ized here for brevity).

 

    Of course, that does not mean that science and reason (Everett) or the classics (Dorr) are to be forsaken at all. The Coen Brothers deepen the contrast between Marva (full faith) and Dorr (a dead faith without works) through Marva and Dorr's actions concerning the Bob Jones University.

    In pursuit of their monetary treasure, Professor Dorr and his hooligans cast their bags of dirt over a bridge onto a garbage barge, which regularly goes to a garbage island seen in the distance. Both the dirt (Gen. 3:19) and the fiery garbage dump (Jer. 7:30-32) become symbolic images in Ladykillers, which bring a new depth of meaning to the film’s portrayal of sin and its wages. 

    The Coen Brothers’ Ladykillers is an excellent addition to their tremendous film canon, keeping a focus on wild, often contradictory characters. Strengthened by a superbly humorous performance by Tom Hanks, Ladykillers also succeeds as a witty and gut-busting comedy. It might be easily dismissed, but the Coens' film has just as much to offer in entertainment value and more to say in the ways of wisdom than any other casino caper film (e.g. Ocean's Eleven).