Review: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

I can now say, with much pride and satisfaction, to have seen every single feature length film that the Coen Brothers have made.

I finish my dauntless trek through their filmography with this, their seventeenth, and most recent feature, which plays as a laid back, droll self deprecating look at the mighty dream factory that was Hollywood at the very heights of the storied Studio Area.

The film follows a particularly frustrating day in the life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a professional 'fixer' whose job is to quickly fix whatever issue may be vexing the studio. Be it the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of famed swimming starlet DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), or the attempts to cast homespun cowboy-crooner Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) in a posh chamber drama directed by affluent British director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), or, most pressingly, the sudden disappearance of the studio's biggest star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), right in the middle of filming the sprawling biblical epic, Hail Caesar!. On top of that, identical twin gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (both played by Tilda Swinton) continually harass him for the latest scoop.

As we follow the tough, stalwart Catholic Mannix through his hectic day, the Coen's create a film whose tone is best described as tongue in cheek riffing on the style and mannerisms of that Golden Age of Hollywood. From the vivid, richly colored cinematography by Roger Deakins, to the hilariously over the top, yet stalwartly faithfully recreated films-within-the-film, from the kitschy yet sincere Bible epics, to the hokey Westerns, to the stuffy chamber dramas, the Coen's create them all so precisely, yet with just the right touch of comical exaggeration, that for a huge movie geek like me, it was a real joy to behold.

The whole cast is top notch, from Josh Brolin's long-suffering Mannix, to Johansson's Bronx accented swimming queen, to Alden Ehrenreich's honest and lovably homespun cowboy, to Clooney's hilariously dimwitted kidnapped star, the entire ensemble flows together, and all perfectly compliment each other. Bonus bit parts go to Channing Tatum as a Gene Kelly-styled song-and-dance man, and Jonah Hill as the no-nonsense same-faced man who is hired to do whatever the studio needs of him, to Frances McDormand's hilarious cameo as a chain smoking, scarf wearing film editor.

The film breezes along smoothly, at times feeling like a neatly connected array of mini-stories and subplots, with the actual kidnapping being only a cover so that a clutch of ineptly Communist screenwriters can seduce Clooney to their side, and use him as an ally in their on-going shadow war against the supposed evils of the studio system. Of course, the Coen's have no such illusions, instead painting the screenwriters as a flock of headless chickens, parroting their ideology and bickering among each other, even while they sip expensive champagne in a sprawling seaside mansion in Malibu. No, the real hero here is Mannix, whose erstwhile dedication to the spirit of cinema is shown through his constant putting up with all sorts of shenanigans, all while never asking anything from anyone, and simply charging ahead, not taking anybody's BS, even while he's forced to spread some heavy BS on behalf of the studio.

But he does so from a place of honesty and integrity. At the time, film was a dream factory, a place to go and escape the mundane elements of life. Movie stars weren't just people, they were ideals and dreams given flesh, and while the film holds no illusions as the obvious artificiality of cinema, and the people who make it, the film itself, via Michael Gambon's deliciously cheesy narration, that the Coen's deep down care about cinema just as much as Mannix does. Sure, it's a world filled with double-talk and corner cutting, and more then likely to fake its way into your heart, but once it's in your heart, it stays there, and never quite looses that wonderful shine.

Of course, this is a film by film geeks, and as such, is tailored towards film geeks. Much the film's humor comes from the contrast of 1950s sensibility and film making methods (such as the complex inter-company politics of the studio system), with the modern day. This is back when something as mundane as an out of wedlock baby could doom a career, or implied homosexuality or Communist sympathies could spell death for a star, no matter how big. Yet the film treats it all as a whimsical circus, one that's build on sound stages and celluloid, and telling a tall tale, which this film does with abandon.

And so, I can say that, for me, I quite enjoyed the film. It doesn't take itself seriously, nor should it have. It knows what it is: a tongue-in-cheek satirical love letter to a bygone age, viewed with the unique brand of cynical nostalgia that only the Coen's could have created.

5 out of 5 stars.