10 Bad Films By Great Directors

The only truly bad film in The Coens' unrivalled body of work and the only film that doesn't have at least one touch of their greatness. This remake of the 1955 Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness is a downtrodden mess, a film so desperate to be Funny, capital H, that it bypasses any attempt at subtlety - one of the Coens' great traits - and goes straight for the Big Laugh, failing desperately.

It doesn't help that Tom Hanks, taking over the Alec Guinness role, doesn't fit half as well into the Coens' world as George Clooney did before him. Clooney brought a Cary Grant-ish quality to the Coen worldview, imbuing it with a nice sense of bumbling-but-dashing mania. Hanks, however, just doesn't quite get it, blowing and grunting his way through a lacklustre performance, never close to matching the original.

The Coens only took on this project when their regular cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, backed out of directing it himself. This shows, and the duo made their first artistic flop as a consequence. They would have a better experience filming a remake six years later, when their True Grit received 10 Oscar nominations to surpass the original.