Hail, Caesar! looked like an interesting movie to me. It has an all star cast and it is the Coen brothers tackling the golden age of Hollywood which on paper sounds really awesome. The Coen brothers are in my all time top five favorite directors and I thought Hail, Caesar! looked great, but there was one big red flag for me. It is coming out this month which is February. February isn’t as bad as January when it comes to movie releases, but considering this movie has an all star cast I can’t help but think that this movie was suppose to come out at the end of 2015. After watching it I unfortunately have to state that I know why it came out in February and I can also confirm that when it comes to Coen brothers movies this is near the bottom.
Hail, Caesar! is about a movie studio called Capital Pictures and is based sometime during the 1950s. The day to day operations are overseen by head of production Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin). One day the studios biggest star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), is kidnapped off the set and Mannix has to get to the bottom of it before it leaks out to the media. Throughout the days we spend with him we also encounter other actors making movies such as the Esther Williams inspired starlet character Deeanna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), Kirby Grant inspired singing cowboy character Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), and Gene Kelly inspired character Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum).
Even though Hail, Caesar! did not meet my expectations I really enjoyed the all star cast and the look of the film. The Coens did a great job at making this movie look like 1950s Hollywood. The best thing I like about the Coen brothers are that they are able to mix comedy, suspense, and drama very well. In this movie they do that for the most part although the suspense isn’t quite there because the plot is very lacking in many respects. The plot is the main downfall for this movie and why I don’t think it is quite up to snuff when compared to other Coen brother movies. When we find out what is going on and why Baird Whitlock is kidnapped it is kind of interesting although somewhat obvious at the same time.
The all star cast is also really good throughout the movie. Scarlett Johansson is perfect as the typical old Hollywood starlet and her New York accent works great for her character. George Clooney is solid as the over the top Kirk Douglas inspired Baird Whitlock and does a good job at coming off as kind of a doofus. The best performance in the movie however comes from Alden Ehrenreich who plays singing cowboy actor Hobie Doyle. The character is written favorably compared to most of the other characters although I think Ehrenreich does a great job at making the character likable in a way we don’t expect. Ehrenreich has only starred in one other movie, 2013’s Beautiful Creatures, which I thought was underrated and I’ll look forward to future performances from him especially if he gets a chance to work with the Coen brothers again.
This movie has all the great trademarks that make the Coen brothers great, but I just can’t get past how lackluster the plot was. I know it isn’t a popular opinion but I had similar problems with their movie Fargo which like Hail, Caesar! has great characters but it just really drops the ball in the third act. Recently Fargo has become a show and although I haven’t seen it I have heard great things about it. I can’t help but think the story of the fictional Capital Pictures would have been better as a TV show. That way they would have had more time to flesh out the characters and could have explored more sub-plots. All in all I’ll I enjoyed the movie enough to give it a pass although I really hope this movie isn’t a sign that the Coen brothers are losing what makes them great directors.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★(3) out of ★★★★★(5)
