Hail, Caesar! review: “Very enjoyable, beautifully shot, and well performed.”

Hail Caesar review: The Coen Brothers bring to the screen their love letter to the studio films of the 1950s.

Hail Caesar review by Luke Ryan Baldock. The Coen brothers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen are two of the finest filmmakers ever. They have produced classics throughout their career cementing them as genuine talent. However, every now and again they like to dabble in farcical screwball comedies that always meet a mixed response. Their misguided remake of the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers left many feeling a bit dry, Intolerable Cruelty had its fans and haters (I’m one of the former), and Burn After Reading once again split critics. It’s great to see that The Coen’s never give up on something they obviously feel passionate about, and also that they won’t be bullied into a corner of making the same type of film over and over again.

Hail, Caesar! is most certainly one of their more farcical efforts, but that isn’t to say that it lacks the charming darkness of their most celebrated work. It follows Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) as a 1950s studio fixer. It’s his job to keep the deviant behaviour of stars out of the gossip columns. This plot strand alone is an enjoyable look at Hollywood past, and most certainly contrasts well with today’s TMZ obsessed world. Let’s hope the sequel will be a time-travelling comedy with Mannix in the present day.

Mannix is put to the test when megastar Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is kidnapped and held for ransom. It turns out though that Whitlock isn’t exactly the most disagreeable kidnap victim, leading to the offbeat humour the Coen’s are famed for. Both Brolin and Clooney are phenomenal in the film, with Brolin perfectly channeling a gruff and serious Hollywood fixer, who believes in equal opportunities (in that everybody is at risk from a slap), while Clooney takes on his usual idiotic persona as seen in previous Coen efforts.

The rest of the film is made up of short vignettes that take us through 1950s Hollywood, introducing a lovable set of characters that roughly blend into the main story. Channing Tatum is a tap dancing star, Alden Ehrenreich is a bankable cowboy making the move into Ralph Fiennes’ quaint English drama, while Scarlett Johansson channels Esther Williams with water based theatrics. These all add up to the simple fact that we need to see the Coens make each of these films as an individual piece.

It is clear that the Coens could easily handle any of these genres, but we are instead just treated to little snippets that leave us wanting more. The choreography in all instances is something we rarely see today, and although I’m sure CG helped with some of the set-ups, this is a brand of cinema that has unfortunately been lost.

Although very enjoyable, beautifully shot, and well performed, the whole film feels as though it is incomplete in some ways. There isn’t much of an ending, big stars drop in and out of the feature, and a few moments seem far too absurd. Far from a failure, Hail, Caesar! represents a lot of talent, but not in the right amount of doses.

Hail Caesar review by Luke Ryan Baldock, February 2016.

Hail Caesar is released in the UK on 4th March.