Hail, Caesar!

I think it’s time for the Coen brothers to put some thought into changing their shtick.

Hail, Caesar!, the newest film by writer/director/brother duo Ethan and Joel Cohen, takes us back to 1950’s Hollywood where The Cold War has just kicked into high gear, television has finally started to invade homes, and the studio system that has more or less governed Hollywood from the beginning has begun to fall apart. The plot follows Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a Hollywood “fixer” at Capitol Pictures whose sole purpose is to keep the scandalous doings of their various stars out of the papers and out of the public eye. With barely a few days left to shoot, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the main star of the studio’s latest epic titled Hail, Caesar!, is kidnapped, a ransom of $100,000 put on the table by the mysterious group called “The Future”. Now, on top of dealing with numerous other problems that have cropped up regarding a few other reckless stars from the studio, Mannix must figure out who captured Whitlock and bring him back before the studio has to shut down production and the public begins to notice his disappearance.

From the outset it’s pretty clear that the brothers haven’t strayed far from their proven formula of quirky characters thrust into relatively silly situations. It worked for The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Raising Arizona, even Burn After Reading to an extent; the list could go on and on, but the point is that these siblings never go too far out of their comfort zone when they write and direct anymore, and I think it’s starting to hurt them rather than help. Essentially, this movie is the Coen brothers’ love letter to cinema. It’s chock full of 1950’s Hollywood glamour and sensibility, while at the same time taking a moment to make a few interesting comments on Hollywood as a whole. It’s here that the movie shines the most, mainly because it has nothing to do with the film itself, rather more to do with what the brothers seem to be trying to say by making the film in the first place.

The underlying commentary about what the medium of film means, even though it’s essentially a whole big corporate business ploy, is well founded and interesting as hell to think about. I felt like the Coens were essentially saying that even though movies really don’t mean much to the executive overlords, it means something to everyone else involved, and in the end, that’s what really matters. These small and honest scenes, coupled with a bunch of really well done riffs on what a director has to endure while making a movie, is where most of the fun is found. It’s just a shame that everything else doesn’t seem to be much more than a handful of scenes strung together by a loose and half-assed plot.

Outside of the intriguing commentary, the only other time the Coens seem to be firing on all cylinders is when it comes to yet another part of the movie that didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things: the brief scenes of the fictional movies that are being shot on the Capitol Pictures backlot. Every few scenes or so, Mannix, in the middle of trying to figure out the main plot of the movie, stumbles into a few soundstages to watch the filming of these fictional movies. It’s here that the Coens are at their best and seem to be having a hell of a time. Who knew that Channing Tatum could tap dance and hold together a full-length musical scene? Not me, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t extremely impressed and entertained. The Hail, Caesar! scenes, acted with a dumb sort of charm by Clooney, is as spot on as it is hilarious. It’s fun to see the Coens poke fun at the industry while giving an interesting spin on what it’d be like if they directed, say, a musical or a historical epic. It’s just a bummer that with all of the talent onscreen, the script couldn’t do much else to save the rest of the film.

As for remainder of the characters, played loosely by everyone involved, they don’t really add up to much since we never stay on one of them for much longer than a scene or two. The cameos, while fun, don’t do anything outside of saying, “Hey, look who we got to act in our movie!” Brolin has the most to do as the studio “fixer” but even his motivation and through line seem to be an afterthought. Sure he’s being pulled in a few different directions throughout the film in regards to the various subplots that need his attention, but as with the characters themselves, the main story doesn’t really seem to matter. With a meandering plot that seems too overly stuffed with fluff, the movie got boring at times, which leads me think that the Coens had no real idea of where the movie was headed to begin with.

All this being said, I don’t necessarily think the Coen formula is broken, I just wish they would try and take a bigger risk when it comes to the content of their movies. No Country For Old Men was an interestingly different step in the brothers’ filmography, and after seeing this film; I’m starting to think they need to try something fresh and new. Fun while it lasted, but forgettable once it was over, Hail, Caesar!, is a just okay addition to the Coen brothers’ lineup. Here’s hoping they come back swinging with their next film.