BEFORE: The end of a Tom Hanks triple-play tonight -
THE PLOT: An eccentric Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord: a sharp old woman.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Ladykillers" (1955) (Movie #822)
AFTER: This is another "heist" or "caper" film, a remake of the 1955 film that moves the action to the American South, but keeps many of the original's plot points: a group of thieves masquerading as a musical group, renting a room in an older woman's house in order to gain access to an underground vault.
But, instead of comparing it to the original Alec Guinness film, I found myself comparing it to two other "caper" films - "Raising Arizona" (made by the same filmmakers) and "A Fish Called Wanda" (not made by the same filmmakers, but made by the same director as "The Lavender Hill Mob") They seem to have many of the same elements - colorful characters, some with weird accents, a large sum of money at stake, and people getting hurt or killed in hilarious ways. SO, what makes those other films score so high, and this film seem so average?
Part of it is timing, I suppose - I'm not in a particular mood tonight where I would appreciate a black comedy. But the rest is rather intangible - the same filmmakers put together a madcap film with similar elements as something they succeeded with before, and it falls flat. Are there subtle differences in the performances of the actors - did Tom Hanks not "sell" his refined Southern gentlemanly accent enough? Was Nicolas Cage just born to play a dumb, clueless convenient store robber? Are some plot frameworks just inherently better than others?
I don't have answers here, but I'll keep asking the questions. In the meantime I find this film "incoherent" - not that I was unable to understand it, but more like it didn't seem to cohere or come together in the best possible way. That's as descriptive as I'm willing to get.
Also starring J.K. Simmons (last seen in "For Love of the Game"), Marlon Wayans (last heard in "Marmaduke"), Irma P. Hall (last seen in "Collateral"), George Wallace (last seen in "Funny People"), Tzi Ma, Ryan Hurst, Diane Delano, with cameos from Stephen Root (last seen in "Red State"), Greg Grunberg (last seen in "Super 8").
RATING: 5 out of 10 waffles
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