Movie Review: Hail, Caesar!

When it comes to the Coen brothers, you can always believe the hype. Maybe just don’t believe the trailers.

The ads for their latest venture, Hail, Caesar!, promote a riotous team-up flick in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven, in which Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson (as Golden Era Hollywood hoofers) lead a team of dunderheaded actors in a complicated criminal operation.

That is not the film we get. Not really, anyway.

Instead of that easy-going trifle, we get yet another thoughtful Coen exercise in religious confusion and the pursuit of greatness amidst mediocrity.

But, yes, it does still feature Tatum and Johansson as vintage 1950s movie stars; the former dressed as a sailor, tapping his toes to a daffy musical number entitled “No Dames”, and the latter in a mermaid suit, at the center of an elaborate synchronised swimming set-piece. It’s also hilarious, despite its serious intentions. Just because Joel and Ethan Coen are thoughtful tricksters doesn’t mean they’re not fun-loving too.

Here, reliable Coen muse Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, a real-life studio fixer (responsible for hiding stars’ secret, scandalous dalliances) inside a fictionalised story. Over the course of one day at Capitol Pictures, we watch as he attempts to put out fires, big and small.

The small? Spunky swimming-actress DeeAnna Moran (Johansson) is knocked up, unwed and facing a PR nightmare; gentlemanly cowboy Hobie Doyle (effortless scene-stealer Alden Ehrenreich) is in need of a rebranding; and classy director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) is seeking a leading man for his prestige picture, already in production.

The big? Uber-famous Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) has been kidnapped from the set of Hail, Caesar!, the expensive Biblical epic being produced by Capitol Pictures and agitating numerous religious heads. Elsewhere, communist screenwriters are covertly sowing the seeds of dissent, reminding us viewers 65 years in the future of the witch hunt that permeated and poisoned the industry.

With Whitlock being held to ransom by a mysterious cabal called ‘The Future’, Mannix has only 24 hours to get them $100,000 and secure Baird’s return by the morning, before twin reporters Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, both) cotton on to his disappearance and alert the gossip rags.

So, once again, a suitcase of money acts as the MacGuffin driving along the Coen-penned plot, as it did in Fargo, No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona… look, all of them.

However, securing the money is hardly an issue; this is Hollywood, after all. The real tension comes from Mannix mulling over a job offer far from the film world, with this most recent incident making him wonder if the pictures he produces are even worth all the stress and secrecy behind the scenes.

As Mannix endures his career crisis, the Coens take us from ludicrous set to ludicrous set (like an acrobatic western and a pretentious theatrical adaptation), skewering the trivial nature of show-business and, somehow, simultaneously making a case for its significance. It’s like Sullivan’s Travels, except it has cameos from Christopher Lambert and Dolph Lundgren, which I don’t believe Sullivan’s Travels can boast.

You can rarely impeach a Coen production on its technical craftsmanship. Regular collaborators Roger Deakins and Carter Burwell shoot and score, respectively, with expected skill. Unsung costume designer, Mary Zophres, helps bring the period-specific details to life.

Really, the only metric by which you can measure Joel and Ethan's movies – especially given their penchant for repetition – is against its siblings.

It’s true that Hail, Caesar! is not as amusing a shaggy dog story as The Big Lebowski, nor is it as moving a morality play as Fargo, nor is it as incisive a religious investigation as A Serious Man, nor is it even their best effort about disaffected screenwriters arguing about the plight of the working man (that honour remains with Barton Fink).

Yet, 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis proved that late-era Coens can still make magic, and in its own flippant, farcical way, Hail, Caesar! manages the same, aided by its fleet-footed cast.

Consider this the Coens' toy box, where their classic themes and typical fascinations can play out in slightly goofier fashion than usual. Their message comes through loud and clear: ain’t cinema grand? It’s the same thing I usually think after watching any of their works, honestly.

4/5

In cinemas now. Rated PG for mild themes and coarse language.