In the healing hands of the Coen Brothers, Ealing comedy enjoys a temporary revival. Ealing Studios produced a string of quintessentially English hits in the forties and fifties, typically starring nefarious types who met a sticky end. Think Passport To Pimlico or the original The Ladykillers, once starring Alec Guinness and now reborn with Tom Hanks in the lead role. What might sound like a travesty of cultural implanting is actually rather good. To paraphrase director Joel Coen (Fargo, Intolerable Cruelty), the source material was stripped to its spine and given a body graft. Action has moved to modern day Mississippi although it harkens to a much slower time. The charlatan poet Professor Dorr (Hanks in excellent form) gathers an eclectic bunch of poorly skilled thieves to knock off a casino by tunnelling from the cellar of his landlady, Mrs Munson. Matters fall apart when they begin to realise their ineptitude and are sprung by Munson, a wily old Christian who proves rather difficult to exterminate.

The Coens are fending not unreasonable criticism that they’ve lost their creative spark by indulging in the unpalatable realm of remake. Worse, they’ve moved the story Stateside! While The Ladykillers’ bones have been exhumed, the flesh is entirely original. None of the irregular charm that marks their comedy is missing from a film so expertly constructed that each element falls into place with joyful, clockwork precision. From the inspired opening to the deliciously bleak finale, The Ladykillers is imbued with a cheerful irreverence as befits the screwball project. It shouldn't suprise then, that a sizeable collection of Margaret Thatcher nudes is owned by the film’s editor. A true story.

// COLIN FRASER