Hail, Caesar! An Homage to Hollywood

As someone who adores classic cinema, and also adores the Coen Brothers, Hail, Caesar! is right in my wheelhouse. A lighthearted series of vignettes that delve into the random craziness of the studio system and getting pictures made in the golden age of Hollywood (though I doubt things have changed that much), this is a movie that has something for everyone but is particularly tailored to delight film lovers.

Set in 1951, Hail, Caesar! follows the busy life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a Hollywood executive who needs to clean up the various scrapes the stars and directors of his motion pictures manage to get into. It's his responsibility to keep their scandals out of the press, ensure the movies are running on schedule and on budget, and make both the temperamental artistes and the general audience happy. This proves to be a challenging job indeed, because over the course of two hours, he has to deal with the kidnapping of his main leading man, an unwed starlet's pregnancy, placing a clueless Western star into a posh English film, consulting ministers and rabbis about the potential offensiveness of a picture about Jesus Christ, and a random conspiracy involving Communists and Nazis. On top of all this, he has twin gossip columnists dogging his every move in search of a story. This is a busy man.

Joel and Ethan Coen have kept the tone of this movie snappy and breezy. Nothing gets too serious and there are so many random plots that you need to simply suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. It doesn't feel like there is one overarching story - ultimately this is an homage to the movies that lightly pokes fun at the tropes of the various film genres that were (and still are) churned out with monotonous regularity by the big studios. A standout scene involves British director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) trying to coach Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich ), a young American actor who has only worked in Westerns. We get to watch Hobie suffer as Laurence forces him to enunciate the words, "Would that it were so simple?" and is given the complicated direction to embody ruefulness with a "mirthless chuckle." It feels like something out of Monty Python, a delicious sketch among many others. The movie features a stellar cast, including George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and more Coen favorites. Through it all, Josh Brolin centers the film, as the competent yet hapless Eddie Mannix tries to untangle the constant stream of crises he is presented with on a daily basis.

Hail, Caesar! features His Girl Friday-esque snappy dialogue, bewildering plot, comic setpieces, and a magical musical number from Channing Tatum featuring fancy footwork that would make Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire marvel. It is a charming movie, a loving satire of all the things that were great and terrible about the golden age of Hollywood. They don't make movies like that anymore, but thankfully we have the Coen Brothers to remind us.