MovieScope By Robert Snyder
‘The Ladykillers’ – Hanks As Hambone
 | | After the seminar one small business owner, Thelma Franquiz (Auri Security) talked to Moy (left) about her business. |
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While Jim Carrey is straightening up his act, Tom Hanks is reaching new heights of hamminess. Despite the crazy memory-erasing premise, Car rey’s "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has him easing off on outrageousness. However, Hanks has left a series of "serious" roles ("Philadel phia," "Castaway," "The Green Mile," "Road to Perdition") for the over-the-top wackiness ofA0 eccentric, intellectual crook Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D., in "The Ladykillers," a Coen Brothers’ southern fried version of the 1955 British classic with Alex Guiness and then newcomer Peter Sellers. In fact, Hanks chews scenery so hard in "Lady killers" that it’s annoying... often distracting from the wafer-thin story. What he’s up against ultimately saves the movie: Irma P. Hall as the flamboyantly-opinionated Af ric an American widow, Mar va Munson, who allows Dorr and his impostors to rehearse Ren aissan ce music in her basement when, in fact, they’re tunneling to the moneyed vault of a nearby casino. It’s a caper concept similar to Woody Allen’s "Small Time Crooks" and dozens of other films.
Hall is wonderful, stealing every scene into which she steps. "Lady" opens with harassing Sheriff Wyner (George Wallace) with her complaint of a neighbor blasting "hippety-hop" music from a boom box. Her musical preference is gospel, which is performed with great gusto throughout the film by such groups as the Soul Stirrers and the Swan Silver tones. While Hanks is given state center, he’s not only almost pushed aside by Hall, but by gang members Marlon Wayans as inside man Gawain (the per sonification ofA0 "hippety hop") and J.K. Simmons playing gastric demolition expert Garth Pancake. They have an ongoing altercation that provides much of the limited laughs. The other two crooks, an ex-Viet namese general/tunneler (Tzi Ma) and super stupid jock (Ryan Hurst), are barely developed, basically serve as props and one-note jokes.
"The Ladykillers" is a lesser effort by the prolific Coens... well below the entertainment level of "Fargo," "Rais ing Arizona" and the recent, though under-appreciated "Intolerable Cruel ty." Still, it’s head and shoulders above most "American Pie" comedies coming out today.
 | | Brian Gurski, a loan consultant for Accion, explained how the three different credit agencies break down a person’s credit payment history for past 24 months. |
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