The Coen Brother's remake of The Ladykillers goes hand-in-hand with their last film, 'Intolerable Cruelty,' which only six months ago marked their first attempt at something resembling a mainstream film. That was a lightweight, cheerfuly dismissable film; this one is a little more problematic, and I think I can sum up its erroneous nature in no less than three distinct letters: IBS.

This is the anagram for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, an unfortunate symptom that has proved to be a bottomless mine of material for comedy writers. And no doubt, bowel humor can be funny; like many people, I still remember the pain that wreaked my sides during the infamous toilet scene in Dumb & Dumber. More often than not, however, such lowbrow humor is a mark of desperation, or of a lazy screenwriter grasping for a cheap and easy gag to placate the audience. To cut to the chase, I'm disappointed that the Coen Brothers, whose screenplays have reached unheard of heights of comic genius, have in this film resorted to protracted fart jokes. That's what the Farrelly Brothers are for.

The digestive problems belong to a man named Pancake, played by J.K. Simmons, who is a member of a group of thieves led by Tom Hanks, whose character is named Dr. Goldthwait Higginson Dorr. That his name is entirely made up of surnames is a classic Coen touch, one also found in the Arthurian moniker of the robber played by Marlon Wayans: Gawain McSamm. The other members of the group include a Japanese general and a football player with a bicep where his brain should be; they're your typical team of eccentric oddballs, save for Wayans, who seems to have walked right out of an 'urban' picture, which is one of the movie's big jokes.

Their plan is to tunnel into the safe of a riverboat casino in Louisiana; the point of origin for this operation is the basement of Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall), an elderly widow who now and then strikes up conversations with a portrait of her dead husband. She's an avid churchgoer, and is pleased when Professor Dorr explains to her, when inquiring about the use of her home, that he and his cohorts are a band of renaissance musicians who play "church music."

Dorr is one of the movie's high points and also a sign of its weakness. Hanks is terrific: he revels in his slyly hammy Southern accent and his bizarre laugh and facial tics are sources of great amusement; his dialogue is made up of the precarious towers of elaborate, antiquated prose that the Coens frequently favor; and that's it. His character is not a character but an exercise in eccentricity, a blank model on which the Coens indulgently impose their odd sensibilities.

The rest of the characters, although less concentrated, follow suit. They exist to serve the plot, which is in itself not strong enough to support them. The Coens seem to have overloaded the entire film with bizarre and ironic details to hold their interest; the film, which, like 'Intolerable Cruelty,' was a script-for-hire job that they ended up directing, seems to bore them, and because they clearly don't care about any character, except perhaps for Mrs. Munson, the film only really comes to life when they begin to gleefully dispatch everyone. And even then, they sort of recycle the best joke from their last movie; it involved an asthama inhaler in that case, and it was hilarious -- the first time.

It's only been a little over two years since The Man Who Wasn't There, a work of wry beauty that gets stronger every time I see it, but that suddenly seems like an eternity ago. There are a few moments here, like the scenes where Hanks recites Edgar Allen Poe and the score by Carter Burwell ebbs in on the soundtrack, or the joyful Gospel music interludes, that remind me of what the Coens are capable of, and then there are the IBS jokes that make me sigh and hope this is a phase. My theory is this: the film they were supposed to make in 2001, an adaptation of James Dickey's awe-inspiring WWII drama To The White Sea, fell through due to budget problems, so perhaps they agreed to direct these mainstream comedies so as to find favor with studios and pick up where they left off, with what could potentially be the greatest film of their career. I'm hoping this is true; I'm hoping and waiting, waiting with baited breath.