Review of Hail, Caesar! (2016) by Foxgrove — 16 Mar 2016

The most disappointing thing about ‘Hail Caesar!’ is that it had the potential to be a very funny pastiche of Hollywood’s golden age, and indeed the moments involving movie making recreations are sublime indeed.

The problem is that the two main threads of the story are just not worthy of the incidental pleasures that the rest of the movie affords. The characters of Eddie Mannix and Baird Whitlock, played by Josh Brolin and George Clooney as a troubled studio head and kidnapped star respectively, are just not given the material to make their characters anything but dull, despite their perfectly respectable efforts.

The film is basically too loosely written to gel properly into a satisfactory whole and it is definitely not as funny as it should be. Inspired moments peppered throughout enable a game supporting cast to try and salvage a film that is resolutely skewered to following the boring story arcs of Brolin and Clooney.

Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes all register strongly, but it is Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich who steal the show. Tatum is dazzlingly fabulous in his big song and dance number demonstrating a talent I don’t think anyone could have imagined.

And as Hobie Doyle, the dumb star of countless westerns making his transition to drama, Ehrenrich presents us with the most enjoyable and fully rounded character in the film. More of him and less of Brolin and Clooney would have been advantageous and most welcome.

The film’s biggest laugh out loud moment, though, is reserved for Frances McDormand’s editor, C C Calhoun, whose one scene unwittingly, but deliciously, brings to mind Isadora Duncan. The film is finely crafted in all areas but especially in costume and production design.

Their contributions add to the scenes recreating the movie making process which are undoubtedly the highlights of an otherwise very uneven film.