The Ladykillers (DVD)

If there is any doubt as to whether or not Tom Hanks can make an unbelievable character believable then you haven't seen The Ladykillers (or The Terminal for that matter). Unfortunately while Tom Hanks is turning in one hell of a memorable performance the movie falters and flops around like a dead fish as the Coen brothers are still looking to match the early success of Fargo and even O' Brother Where Art Thou?

The Ladykillers follows a "skilled" group of thieves as they have found refuge in the root cellar of an old lady named Mrs. Munson (Hall). It is here that they will carryout their plot to rob the river boat casino by digging their way to the casino vault, but of course their skills are far from professional and as Mrs. Munson soon learns of their plot it comes time to rub out the old bag, but sometimes that can be harder than expected.

A dark comedy all the way The Ladykillers just misses the punch line by a hair as there are several funny scenes, but altogether it just doesn't work. The DVD special features are just like the film as they are lacking but do contain a couple of goodies.

You can easily push aside the first two features containing a "Slap" (or gag) reel, plus a feature giving you a little more of the Gospel scenes than I actually asked for, but there is a little enjoyment to be found in the feature dedicated to Danny Ferrington.

Ferrington hand designed all the instruments used as a ruse by the con men of Ladykillers and aside from his skilled craftsmanship it is pretty cool to get a short look into his life and while it is not a feature you would keep coming back to it is good the first time.

As for the final feature the "ScriptScanner" you will need your DVD-ROM drive on your computer for this one, and I usually hate these features, because the last thing I want to do is sit down at my desk and mess around with a DVD on my computer, but in this case the feature is quite cool and something Coen fans will love.

A small screen will be shown on the left side of your computer screen playing the film while the text version of the script plays alongside it on the right. Now, you have two options; you can watch with the synchronized script or switch it to clickable and go to any particular scene depicted in the script. If a scene was cut the screen will say "Omitted" giving you a little bit of an extra look at what might have been. This feature isn't exactly hours of fun, but it should keep you busy for a while.

With some of the good things I have said about the DVD I still can't recommend you buy it as the bad outweighs the good. I do, however, know there is an audience out there that loves the Coen brothers and loves dark comedies, so this may be the one for you, but before you plunk down your change I would recommend adding it to your NetFlix queue and see if it is the one for you.