The Ladykillers portrays how famous burglar Professor G.H. Dorr (Tom Hanks) and his gang plot to steal an old lady's home. Professor G.H. Dorr appears as a refined person, despite his occupation, and his fondness of Edgar Alan Poe is the main identifying feature of the movie. The robbery, however, is just a backdrop to the movie's main purpose. The sequence of events following the attempt to rob the old lady, and the almost impossibly unfortunate consequences thereof, are part of the identification of the movie with Poe's work, which is its main highlight. References are everywhere, from citations of Poe's work to slight references inserted between the scenes to the obvious and explicit raven. Everything converges, eventually, to an equally Poe-ish ending.