Review of Hail, Caesar! (2016) by Amanda C — 14 Jul 2016

It may be far from the Coen's best, but Hail, Ceaser! is an enjoyable romp through Hollywood's golden age. At least, I think it is. It is difficult to place the exact time when the film takes place, but it's somewhere around the time musicals where hugely popular, Busby Berkeley was still a staple director and the big screen historical epic was a Hollywood staple.

The plot, involving communists kidnapping one of the major studio's biggest stars, is a confusing mash of events that never quite manage to add up, fortunately, the individual events more than make up for the film's overall incoherence.

Whether it's the studio boss consulting various spiritual leaders on how their film depicts god, Told a Swinton's nosey, identical twin gossip columnists trying to find he next scoop, Oscar Isaacs as an overweight, sour-faced agitator, Scarlett Johansson as the ethereal, foul mouthed, chain smoking mermaids starlet, or Channing Tatum dancing in a sailor suit, there's a little something for everyone.

Sure the whole film reeks of nostalgia for the past, when star culture reached its peak, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Hail, Ceaser! is less about longing than it is about celebrating the past.

It's a classical take on filmmaking, which is, if nothing else, refreshing in this day and age of super fast cuts and shaky cams, where no one takes the time to ease into everything. By today's standards, Hail, Ceaser! is a tad slow, but that's part of the beauty of it.

The Coen's, with their gift of sharp, talky and articulate scripts have created an enjoyable throwback film that takes the time to explain or at least offer up some complex social and moral issues.

It would just be nice if they'd spent a little more time exploring these issues instead of bouncing onto the next one.