"The Ladykillers" was a 1955 British comedy that starred Alec Guiness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom. Now comes a Coen brothers remake with Tom Hanks in the Guinness role and, although Hanks would be the right actor to play a low-key deceiver, the Coens have made his character so bizarre that we get distracted just by looking at him.

Hanks plays Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, who claims to be a professor of Latin and Greek, dresses like KFC's Col. Sanders, and seems to be channeling Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price. As in the original, he rents a room from a sweet little old lady, and plans to use her home as a base for a criminal scheme. In this case, he and four associates will tunnel from her root cellar into the cash room of a nearby casino named the Bandit Queen. The professor explains to the lady that the five of them are a classical music ensemble who need a quiet place to practice; they play music on a boom box to cover the sounds of their tunneling.
The movie never jells, although its oddness keeps it from being boring. Tom Hanks provides such an eccentric performance that it's fun just to watch him behaving. There are some big laughs in the movie, some of them involving body disposal and another one as Garth Pancake demonstrates the safe handling of explosives.

This flick is worth a few laughs, but it seems to try too hard to get them from you. A little less in this case would be a little more funny.