The Coen brothers have given us some great films, like the brilliant Fargo and the Oscar winning No Country For Old Men, which is why their latest offering is a little disappointing by comparison. With Hail, Caesar! the filmmaking siblings return to the Golden Years of Hollywood in the 50s, which was the backdrop of Barton Fink, their rather acerbic take on the movie industry. Unlike that darker toned film though, this is a more playful homage to the classic films of the era.
Hail, Caesar! is a droll, sharp parody of 50s Hollywood, a time when the all-powerful studios controlled their stars and protected their often messy private lives from public scrutiny, cleaning up their personal issues. While it undoubtedly has some great individual moments, as a whole it seems to lack a clear focus and is a relatively inconsequential offering in their canon. But their blackly comic take on the Golden Years of Hollywood lacks bite, and the film is not as easily accessible as something like Robert Altman’s The Player, which was a wonderful two fingered salute to the film industry and its vapid nature.
What passes as a central character here is Ed Mannix (played by Josh Brolin), the intense, tightly wound tough talking head of production for Capitol Studios, who tries to protect the reputation and image of the studio’s major stars. Mannix oversees the daily running of all the film productions shooting on the studio’s assembly line. He also has to deal with temperamental stars, egocentric directors and even negotiate with nosy gossip columnists looking for a juicy scandal or two to report. He is being courted to work for aerospace giant Lockheed, and faces a tough decision about his future.
But Mannix faces a major crisis when the dimwitted Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and hellraisers, is kidnapped from the set of his latest big budget historical epic Hail, Caesar!, the fictional film that gives us this film’s title. It turns out that Whitlock has been abducted by a group calling itself “the future.” They turn out to be a group of disaffected writers with strong communist sympathies, and they try to brainwash the clueless Whitlock into accepting their socialist take on the greed and exploitative nature of the big capitalist studios, hoping that he will smear the studio on his return.
Ironically, this major plot line actually is one of the weakest things about Hail, Caesar!. The real pleasures come from the Coens faithfully recreating many of the popular movie archetypes from the era. Thus we get a spectacular water based musical, complete with synchronised swimming; a western featuring a vapid singing cowboy; an epic historical drama; and even a lavish energetic Gene Kelly type song and dance number. The Coens celebrate films from the era, and there are lots of subtle and clever visual references to classic films. The film is also loaded with plenty of metagags that film buffs will appreciate.
This is a screwball comedy in the mould of Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, full of droll humour and plenty of examples of the Coens’ idiosyncratic eccentric touches and occasional genius. There is the typically dry voice-over from a mannered English thespian, in this case a role filled by Michael Gambon (from the Harry Potter series). Brolin is good as the laconic Mannix, and his fast delivery of tough sounding dialogue perfectly captures the spirit and flavour of many noir dramas of the era. Clooney is also at his goofy best as the dimwitted Whitlock, and he seems to enjoy reprising that gormless persona he has essayed so well in his previous collaborations with the Coens (O Brother, Where Art Thou and Intolerable Cruelty).
Many of the characters here are actually based on real people from the era, and clued up audiences will have fun trying to identify their real life counterparts.
The Coens have assembled a solid ensemble supporting cast, with some big names appearing in cameos and small but telling roles. We get Channing Tatum, surprisingly game as he sings and dances up a storm in a vaguely homoerotic sequence; Ralph Fiennes is suitably waspish as a director whose patience is tried when he is forced to cast a young singing cowboy (played by Alden Ehrenreich), a one dimensional star who has trouble with dialogue, in his adaptation of a serious Broadway drama; Scarlett Johansson is DeeAnn Moran, a popular ingenue whose wholesome image could be destroyed by an unexpected pregnancy; and Tilda Swinton is great in a dual role as Thora and Thessaly Thacker, identical twin sisters and malicious gossip columnists, clearly modeled on Hedda Hopper. Frances McDormand, a regular in their films, has a small but very amusing role as a chain smoking film editor, while Jonah Hill briefly pops up as a lawyer.
The film is certainly evocative of the era, and the technical side of the production is excellent. Jeff Gonchor’s production design is effective, and Mary Zophres’ costumes are eye catching, particularly her colourful and garish creations for Swinton’s twin characters. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is also evocative, with much of it shot in muted colours, while the film recreations are done in glorious technicolour, which also reflects the era.
Hail, Caesar! is an ambitious undertaking from the Coen brothers, who often tackle unusual subject matter and rarely repeat themselves. But this cynical take on Hollywood is also a little uneven and the scattergun approach is not completely successful. Like some of their more obscure films such as A Serious Man or The Man Who Wasn’t There, Hail, Caesar! will not appeal to everyone. It’s available now on DVD, Blu-ray and on-demand platforms.
Greg King
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
