Review of Hail, Caesar! (2016) by Eric H — 17 Jul 2016

Having watched the Cohen Brothers career in films beginning with BLOOD SIMPLE, a wonderful film noir, my wife and I could not believe HAIL,CESAR was such an uncreative MESS. I walked out of this movie after an hour.

I only lasted as long as I did because I kept waiting for some kind of plot or for something interesting to focus on besides set design and costumes (which were excellent). It is possible that this movie picks up after an hour, but given that it was impossible for me to take any more after the first 60 minutes, I can't imagine that would make much difference.

This is a movie where things just happen. Something will happen with some people in a scene that will remind you of some classic movie. Then something else will happen unrelated to the last scene with DIFFERENT people that will remind you of a different classic movie.

This continues for an hour (and possibly the whole movie but I couldn't take any more). A lot of the movie suffers from deliberate horrible acting and painful overacting by the actors in order to reference the "period" style of acting in old movies.

Basically, heaven help you if you aren't rabidly in love with classic (Gene Kelly classic, there is actual tap dancing) Hollywood and go see this movie. I'm giving this a 2 instead of a 1 because the costuming/set design was so great.