Review of Hail, Caesar! (2016) by Reel H — 16 Aug 2017

Joel and Ethan Coen, the Academy Award winning sibling team behind "Fargo" and "No Country For Old Men," only occasionally dabble in comedy (straight-up comedy I mean, as their dramas often have plenty of black humor), but when they do, they almost always hit it out of the park with titles like "Raising Arizona," "The Big Lebowski," and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" "Hail Caesar!" is another home run for the duo.

This wickedly funny romp is as much a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood as it is a satire of it, spoofing the movies, the people behind the movies, and even the time period itself. The film even takes a brief time out to feature a musical song-and-dance number (complete with tap dancing!) featuring Channing Tatum. This entire movie is a joy, from start to finish.

There's really not much of a plot as it's more a collection of story lines that occasionally intersect. The common thread in the stories is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) who works as a professional "fixer" for a large movie studio. His job is simple in its description, but is anything but in practice: he cleans up the various messes, problems, and scandals the studio's stars often themselves embroiled in, keeping the sordid details out of the press and saving the studio's reputation.

The movie follows him along on one particularly interesting stretch as Eddie finds himself plagued with issues everywhere he looks. The studio's biggest star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), has been kidnapped by Communists during the filming of their next big prestige film, "Hail Caesar!" Meanwhile a popular young "singing cowboy" actor named Hobie Doyle (Alen Ehrenreich) has been assigned to a dramatic role, and he does not have the necessary acting chops for the part. Elsewhere a demanding starlet (Scarlett Johansson) has become pregnant and is not married, a major no-no for a big name movie star during this time. And finally there's a pair of reporters, both played by Tilda Swinton, who have been sniffing around the missing Whitlock story and suspect that something is amiss.

And amidst all this, Eddie is also being propositioned by an airline employee to leave Hollywood and come work with them, where his job would be decidedly less hectic?but would it be as satisfying?

These interlocking storylines are all full of your requisite Coen Brothers zaniness, amusingly bizarre dialogue, and colorfully memorable characters. Amidst all the shenanigans, Eddie is a relative force of stability, an average, hard-working guy just trying to deal with the crazies around him. He's the guy the audience can relate to, the one who can help us make sense of all this.

The performances are all wonderful?even Tatum, whom I'm not particularly fond of as an actor, shines in his small role?but the standout is Ehrenreich whose Hobie Doyle is a charming, friendly presence that lights up the screen in his cowboy roles, but comes across as stiff and monosyllabic in the dramatic role the studio has placed him in. The scene in which he's attempting to take speech mannerism instructions from the exasperated director (Ralph Fiennes) is pure comedic gold. What I especially liked is that, although he's for sure a bit of simple yokel, he's not stupid, and his astute observations actually come to assist Mannix on more than one occasion.

There's really not much more I can say. So?is this worth seeing? Well, that's the problem with reviewing a comedy. To me, the answer is unequivocally "yes!" as it's one of the sharpest, wittiest comedies I've seen in many a long while. But the average moviegoer may not find this to be very funny. The best I can offer is this: if you enjoyed the Coens' previous forays into comedy, I see no reason why you wouldn't enjoy this, and vice versa. Time will tell if "Hail Caesar!" will have the staying power of "Lebowski" or "O Brother," but in my humble opinion, it's a welcome addition to a pretty amazing catalogue.