Review 377: Hail, Caesar!

Hail, Caeser! wasn't terrible, but it wasn't spectacularly good or as funny as it wanted to be and overall is one of the Coen Brothers lesser offerings.

It's the year 1951, Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is presented with a busy day at the studio especially when cast member Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) goes missing from the set of a historical epic Hail, Caeser!

The plot is fine, it's just that with these directors behind the camera and the setting and the time period, I was hopping for a bit more satire, but instead the film film feels more like a travelogue of old school Hollywood which sadly became protracted, boring and honestly a bit shallow as well.
In fact, the problem is that there is just too little plot to sustain all the period detail.

And I began to wonder if it was actually going anywhere, all this behind the scenes drama began to where thin on me and I began to grow impatient waiting for the real drama and the obstacles to play out - and it just never did and I started to wonder if this movie actually was little more than a thinly veiled excuse for the Coen Brothers and a bunch of big name actors to work on a project together.
What I am trying to say here is that when you see a movie with a pair of ace directors/writers like the Coen Brothers and an ensemble cast that includes George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson  Josh Brolin, Ralph Fiennes, Alden Ehrenreich and Channing Tatum, you expect it to a masterpiece if not, at least entertaining. It's almost as if the Coen Brothers deliberately wrote this screenplay thinly, with no sense of direction, character or, even worse, purpose. And thats my biggest problem with Hail, Caeser!, it lacked a point. It teaches us, nothing about the Hollywood system of the 1950's and doesn't really engross us in the period.

The Coen Brothers direction is bland, the film mostly meanders and never goes in a good direction and gets moving. It is however a well made, gorgeous looking film, the cinematography is beautiful, the production design is brilliant and captures the class and the professionalism of the 1950's film industry. The costumes are majestic, the score by Carter Burwell is suitably grand, the scenery is breathtaking, the props are miraculous, the make up is rich and the locations for the most part are stunning.

Also while I enjoyed Josh Brolin's performance, the acting from the rest of the cast was good I just didn't see any character, the whole time I was watching the film all I could see was the film saying "Hey, there's George Clooney, hey, there's Scarlet Johansson, hey, there's Alden Ehrenreich, hey, there's Jonah Hill, hey, there's Frances McDormand, hey, there's Channing Tatum". Also, Ralph Fiennes is sadly wasted as a European film director character and Tilda Swinton is just annoying in a duel role as a pair of overbearing gossip columnists.

Also, I just felt that certain characters like Scarlet Johansson, Jonah Hill, Frances McDormand and Channing Tatum added nothing to the story, they show up every scene or so to put on some 1950's actors drama and that's really it. You could have cut all their scenes from the film and it would have changed NOTHING. They're Scarlet Johansson, Jonah Hill, Frances McDormand and Channing Tatum, so flipping what. I don't care, unless they have some meaty characters on display, which in this case, they don't.

Overall, not one of the Coen Brothers best, 2/5.

The Anonymous Critic.