Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen
Writers: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cast: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Veronica Osorio, Heather Goldenhersh, Alison Pill, Max Baker
Runtime: 106 mins.
2016
Hail, Caesar! is a dumb movie about dumb movies. As such, it never reaches the level of profundity of the Coen Bros.' long list of masterpieces, or even the escalating zaniness of their former comedic output like The Big Lebowski. If one were forced to rank their oeuvre, Hail, Caesar! has got to come in pretty low on the list, but the good news is that it doesn't aspire to be at the tippy top. I suspect that if seasoned filmmakers like the Coens tried to make their best-movie-ever every time they set anything to film, they would get burned out fast. Hail, Caeser! is clearly a screw around movie for everyone involved, and it ends up being a passionate and glorious one at that.
If you were to be so inclined to suggest that this movie has a plot, it would surround the activities of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a 1950's Hollywood fixer whose job it is to keep the aptly named Capitol Pictures up and running. He's not a creative, he just keeps the creatives functioning like cogs in a well-oiled machine. He has received an offer for a more stable job with reasonable work hours and far less stress, and this offer occupies his mind during the events of the film, which amount to a particularly trying few days for Mannix. His big movie star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) has been kidnapped by a group of shady communists who call themselves The Future, the media is circling like vultures, and there are a laundry list of other on-and-off-set troubles that Mannix must aggressively manage. In the end, is the creation of Hollywood blockbuster films worth all the trouble?
