– By Cate Marquis –
Coens’ “Hail, Caesar!” spoofs Old Hollywood in style
The Coen brothers offer an hilarious send-up of Golden Age Hollywood movie-making in “Hail, Caesar!” With an all-star cast of Coen regulars, including George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand, Joel and Ethan Coen deliver golden comedy set in sound stages and back-lots, spoofing Old Hollywood studios, before and behind the camera. It seems like a great idea for a comedy, and individual routines are terrific, although the film does not hold together as a whole, meaning it might not rank among the Coens’ greatest. Still, individual comic routines are so good that “Hail, Caesar!”is far funnier than any other recent movie comedy.
“Hail, Caesar!” features the Coens’ signature comedic style: sly, satiric, imaginative and goofy, as displayed in comedies like “The Big Lebowski.” The brothers have spoofed Hollywood before in “Barton Fink” but this one goes much farther. Even though the parts are greater than their sum, those various movie send-ups are great fun. Set in the early 1950s, as the Hollywood’s Golden Age was drawing to a close and as the Red Scare communist witch hunts were ramping up, the film mixes period references with assorted movie genres, including a Gene Kelly-style dance movie, a Esther Williams-type swim movie, a singing-cowboy Western, a sophisticated drama and the prestige Bible epic “Hail, Caesar!”
The story that ties all these movie spoofs together revolves around Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the studio “fixer” for fictional Capitol Pictures. It is Mannix’s job to deal with any problems that crop up at the studio, everything from production disasters, temperamental directors or stars with personal crises that might hurt their image.. Among Mannix’s headaches are swimming star DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), whose elegant looks do not match her tough-dame voice, who is “in trouble,” and director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) who is upset with the studio’s choice of last-minute replacement for the romantic leading man in his sophisticated drama, singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), whose limited acting experience threatens to sink the whole production. Meanwhile there is something funny going on with song-and-dance man Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum). Mannix is being hounded by a pair of competitive celebrity columnists, twin sisters Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton) who are threatening to release an old rumor about actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the star of the studio’s big prestige epic, “Hail, Caesar!” To make things worst, Baird has gone missing. It turns out, he has been kidnapped, by a group of Commie writers calling themselves “The Future.”
In fact, there is nothing futuristic (or scary) about the rumpled, academic writers, who sip tea and nibble cucumber sandwiches while spouting economic theory. The Coens are in classic satiric-to-silly form, and scene after hilarious scene sparkles. Rounding out the cast are Jonah Hill as an accountant/lawyer with special solutions and Frances McDormand as chain-smoking film editor, among other characters.
“Hail, Caesar!” is packed with great comic scenes playing around with Hollywood conventions. Among the gems are Johansson is a glittery green mermaid tail and a water ballet scene, Tatum as a tapping dancing sailor in musical number “No Dames,” and Fiennes as a director patiently coaching an actor having trouble with basic English. The story of studio-fixer Mannix ties the various comic bits together but framing his story as a film noir private eye thriller may have been a misstep. The dark, brooding tone of Mannix’s story, alternating with the bright, candy-colored comedic rest of the film, gives the film’s pace an up-and-down feeling, roller-coasting from low-energy film noir scenes to much more energetic comic style. An energetic “Front Page” style, or even screwball comedy, for Mannix’s genre might have been a better choice, adding references to the Coens’ beloved film noir style elsewhere.
Despite its episodic nature, most of “Hail, Caesar!” is comedy is fine Coens style, meaning a trip to the theater is in the future for Coen brother fans.
© Cate Marquis / The Current
