Hail, Caesar!

HAIL, CAESAR!

Director : Joel & Ethan Coen

Year : 2016

Genre : Comedy

Rating : ***

Despite a high calibre of cast and a script filled to the brim with cine-literate laughs, 'Hail, Caesar!' marks the second disappointment in a row for the legendary Coen brothers. Starring some of the biggest names in the business including George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johanssen, Channing Tatum and Ralph Fiennes to name just a few, 'Hail, Caesar!' is the directing duos slanted, idiosyncratically screwy valentine to the golden age of Hollywood and while many of it's moments stand out as some of the finest and indeed funniest work from the brothers in years, so much of the film feels like a smug pretentious guffaw - a sly set of non-sequiter jokes about the industry that a large proportion of its audience will not get and, more importantly, will not care about. 

It's 1951 and the movie world has entered into a vicious war with it's biggest adversary yet, television. Set in the fictional universe of Capitol Pictures (a name immediately recognisable to those familiar with the Coens own and far superior 'Barton Fink'), 'Hail, Caesar!' follows a particularly hectic day in the life of the forever-penitent Eddie Mannix (Brolin), the gruff, no-nonsense head of production and all-around "fixer" at Capitol whose professional world is thrown into chaos when his biggest star, the oblivious Baird Whitlock (Clooney), is kidnapped from the set by a mysterious group called ''The Future'', putting the production of the studios latest epic - the eponymously named 'Hail, Caesar!' - into total disarray.

Surrounding this story are a number of other subplots including a young Williams-esque engenue (Johannsen) who enlists in Eddie's help to deal with an unexpected (and potentially scurrilous) pregnancy and, in what is easily 'Hail Caesar!'s comedic centrepiece, an ultra posh auteur's (Fiennes) increasingly frustrated efforts to direct a hopeless Western star (the scene stealing Alden Ehrenheich) in his latest snooty period drama. "Would that it were so simple!"

Beautifully photographed by the still as yet non-Oscar winning D.O.P Roger Deakins and designed by frequent Coen collaborator Jess Gonchor, 'Hail, Caesar!' certainly looks the part; with handsomely staged Biblical epics and colourfully flamboyant musical numbers perfectly reflecting the time in cinema when filmmakers would do everything in their power to drag audiences away from the small electric box. The performances are also very good, with Brolin, Fiennes and Enrenheich being the notable standouts from the extraordinary cast which also features the likes of Tilda Swinton (in a fabulously snappy dual role), Jonah Hill and Coen favourite Frances McDormand as a haphazard film editor. 

However, as was the case with the Coens last movie 'Inside Llewyn Davis' and their 2009 raspberry 'A Serious Man', 'Hail, Caesar!' revels in its own inflated ego a bit too much - disconnecting us from the already muddled plot and forcing us to focus on the emptiness of the entire affair. Critics will love it, the general audience will be bemused and frustrated by it and while there is much to admire in both the technical and performance aspects, 'Hail, Caesar!' ultimately falls under the towering shadow of the far more entertaining and much more narratively cohesive Coen brothers films such as 'The Big Lebowski', 'Fargo' and the aforementioned 'Barton Fink'.