Other Media Review

Movie Review: Hail, Caesar!

Hail, Caesar! is the latest movie from the Coen Brothers. As it turns out, we’re all pretty big fans of the Coen brothers, so after many reassurances that this was not the “everyone dies a bloody death” type of Coen brothers movie, I checked it out, along with Redheadedgirl. Our non-spoiler review goes as such: we both enjoyed it, we’d both watch it again, but it didn’t set our worlds on fire or anything. It has a perfect cast and everyone clearly had a great time making the movie, and it was sweet, funny, and clever.

Hail, Caesar! has a plot, but I think we can safely say that it’s basically an excuse for the Coen brothers to film bits and pieces of a lot of different movie styles while new actors get to shine and veteran actors get to have what seems like a ton of fun playing various ridiculous roles. Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, a “fixer” for a major film studio. He solves the actor’s problems, or hides them, and makes the studio look good.

The studio’s biggest project at the moment is a historical religious epic, Hail, Caesar! whose lead is played by George Clooney. The lead is kidnapped, and Mannix has to solve this problem. He also has to deal with a Western star who has been pushed into acting in a drawing room comedy, a synchronized swimmer who is pregnant out of wedlock (Scarlett Johansson, who is DIVINE), a musical about tap dancing Navy sailors led by Channing Tatum, a new job offer from Lockheed Martin, twin journalists played by the ever stellar Tilda Swinton, and the pressing issue of whether his son should play shortstop or infield.

Eddie Mannix, played by Josh Brolin, wearing a dark grey suit looking over the tops of his glasses at someone.
Eddie Mannix

From this point on, we are going to discuss the movie at large, including the plot – it’s all spoilers from this point on. SPOILER ALERT.

 

 

 

S! P! O!

 

 

 

I! L! E!

 

 

 

 

R!S!!!

 

 

RHG:  So I think it’s impossible to describe the typical Coen brothers movie. They’re witty, and there’s no wasted time or visuals, but in terms of general genre, they’ve done everything, and do it with a twist. This is an homage/pastiche of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but it’s also just a Day In The Life of One Dude and all the crazy ass shit he gets to put up with. And I loved that.  

CarrieS: I felt lukewarm about this movie, but I also think it’s a movie that would improve with each rewatch because there are so many fun details in it. My favorite aspect was my deep conviction that it clearly was the result of all the actors and the Coens getting drunk together a lot and talking about what they think would be fun to play, and the Coen brothers being cool with EVERYTHING. “I’ve always wanted to play hardbitten journalists who are twins!” “OK, no problem.” “I’ve always wanted to play a pregnant farting mermaid!” “Sure, we can make that happen!”

RHG: Apparently the original story for this movie (the one I read) is that the Coen brothers sorta mentioned it sideways to The Cloon like, 11 years ago, and The Cloon has used “I’m doing Hail, Caesar!” as his stock answer for “what are you doing next?” ever since, and the Coens were like “Um, George, we haven’t written it yet” and then they called him and said “FINE WE FUCKING WROTE IT” and The Cloon was like “Great, I’m in” and they were like “Do you wanna like….read it?” and he said “No, I’m in, have been for a long ass time, when do we start?” And that was that.  

Hail! George! Clooney! Wearing a roman leather toga, holding a goblet and wearing a giant goofy grin
Hail! George! Clooney!

And I’mm a quote Dude!Roommate on this one: I would totally see like, 20 spinoff movies about these characters right fucking now, so let’s start a White House petition for that.  

CarrieS: Scarlett Johansson is my everything.

RHG:  BRING ME MY FISH ASS.  

giphy

One of the things you get with a Coen movie is perfection in casting. Like, I forget that Josh Brolin is a thing ALL THE TIME, but he was a great choice for this poor guy who spends his days running around fixing the mistakes actors keep making. Clooney, who has basically aged into the perfect version of himself, manages drunken actor + philosophical communist discussion + overwrought 50s sword-and-sandal epic speech without any visible effort and I just love him so much. Also CHANNING TATUM, please come tap dance at my birthday party.  giphy

 

CarrieS: One thing I liked about this movie is that everyone is basically trying to be decent, and there are a lot of surprises. Like, the cowboy dude is actually very talented and smart (and I ship him and Carmen SO BADLY, I love them both). The Coens always struggled with issues of morality in their movies, and with fate versus choice, and some are darker than others (Hello, No Country For Old Men) but in this movie characters did have agency and their choices mattered (although we did of course have the Coen trope of the lost fortune) and people were flawed but seemed to fall more on the side of basically good.

I did have a big, big problem with the closest thing the movie has to villains being the communists and the gay guy. It bugged me because in real life people who were or were suspected of being communists suffered horribly in this country. It was a huge problem in Hollywood, and in California, being communist was considered grounds to have your children taken away from you. By making the kidnappers communists and making their leader a gay communist, the movie seems to be reinforcing the fears that studios had that hiring openly gay actors would tarnish their image and make the actors susceptible to blackmail, and reinforcing this idea of communist menace instead of rebuking it.

UNLESS…you read it as a subversion, because the Communists are super sweet, not remotely menacing, and completely ineffective. Plus obviously Channing’s whole career iin this film is basically an epic takedown of toxic masculinity. So I’m CONCERNED, but I’m not ENRAGED…is I guess what I’m thinking.

I’m that one dude in the movie in the back at the commie’s house who keeps yelling angry things (that truly summed up my entire college career, BTW except we didn’t have those great sandwiches).

RHG: I do read it as a subversion – kind of, or a “look, the vast majority of people who are disillusioned with Capitalism aren’t bad people or Soviet spies or whatever, they’re just, you know, trying to figure shit out and sometimes they yell shit in the back of a meeting. And then there’s that one over dramatic dude who peaces out on a Soviet sub outside of Malibu, but Hashtag Not All Communists, yo.” There wasn’t anyone who was even a villain, even if Eddie kept going to confession every 27 hours because he has an overinflated sense of what he should feel guilty about. It’s just everyone doing the best they can and making questionable choices. (Hobie and Carmen 5EVAR, though.  5EVAR.)

CarrieS: It’s a very soothing movie, especially after some of the more violent Coen movies. It’s not as madcap as my beloved Raising Arizona, either – it just putters around, showing how movies are crazy and dysfunctional and yet totally necessary to happiness. I feel like on a second viewing, I’d relax into it more, and catch more funny little details (so many little details!). It’s chuckle movie, not mostly, a LOL movie. But also not a “mirthless chuckle.”

RHG: Oh god, I felt so bad for Hobie just being over his head with that drawing room scene. Poor pookie! (Mirthless Chuckles is the name of my pub trivia team name, BTW).  

Yes, ludicrous, dysfunctional, and set at the point when how the studio system worked changed dramatically. I’m deeply fond of “day in the life” types stories, and day in the life with some Coen zany is something I didn’t know I was missing, but I was! And no one got shot in the head.

CarrieS: I am so looking forward to watching this again now that I know that no one dies – I swear I spent the entire movie waiting for someone to fall into a wood chipper. But instead it’s a sweet love letter to Hollywood, and it seemed like everyone had a ton of fun making it and getting to play with all the different movie genres (western, musical, epic, noir, drawing room comedy, Busby Berkeley aquatics, etc etc etc). And every time a new actor showed up I squeed. Clancy Brown! Christopher Lambert!

RHG: Ooo la la, Monsieur Lambert!  Yeah, like, EVERYONE was in this movie, and we didn’t even mention Double the Swinton, Double the Fun.  

Totally a Coen brothers love letter to the Golden Age and the movies that led to what we have now. Highly recommend, will buy.

CarrieS: Grade? I’d say a warm and affectionate B on a first viewing, but I feel like this movie is gonna grow on me over time. [Note: between writing this review and posting it, I’ve noticed that I keep thinking about the movie and giggling over it, so I’d say that it’s a slow burn of a movie and my hunch that it improves with time was correct.]

RHG: I’m gonna go with a B+. I’m not squeeing and jumping and going “Omg you have to see this RIGHT NOW,” but I very much enjoyed it.  

Hail Caesar! is in theaters now and you can buy tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.

Add Your Comment →

  1. Lostshadows says:

    I saw this. Way funnier than the last Coen brothers film I saw. (Okay, that was NCfOM, so pretty much a guarantee. I haven’t actually seen that many of their films.)

    I laughed out loud a few times, but yeah, definitely more of a chuckle movie.

  2. laurabelle5 says:

    The absolute best part of this movie was the discussion of religion in the studio conference room. The rabbi and his shrugging about Jesus…KILLED.

  3. CateM says:

    Pretty much exactly my thoughts. The communist bashing stuff didn’t bother me because it felt like we weren’t bashing the communist characters so much as the idea that any big overarching system of belief is going to be a perfect fit for the reality of real life. You sort of get that in a way from Josh Brolin confessing his sins every 24 hours, which even the priest thinks is extreme. In this movie real life is messy, but it’s warm. And ideology – whether it’s communism, or Catholicism, or movie magic and Cloony’s big speech at the end – can’t quite match up perfectly with the needs of real life, but they match up close enough to help the characters be basically good people doing something they’re proud of.

    Also, you know, it’s hilarious.

  4. susan says:

    My 13 year old son saw the commercials and asked to see this (and yay he is outgrowing the endless animation sequels) so we went. My husband and I liked it better, because we got the references to Old Hollywood, where my son and his buddy did not. I think they were expecting something more ha ha funny. I think he would like Raising Arizona better.

  5. Cate Morgan says:

    1: I will watch George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson in anything, but ESPECIALLY a Cohen Bros. movie.

    2: J’adore Channing Tatum’s callout to Gene Kelly, who subverted gender expectations so spectacularly and who I still TOTALLY have a crush on. *happy*

  6. Gwynnyd says:

    I enjoyed the movie. My husband fell asleep during most of it; it clearly did not hold his attention.

    It felt a lot to me like we were seeing a lot of punchlines without some of the necessary setups.

  7. Lora says:

    Didn’t they do Intolerable Cruelty? One of my faves, so underrated, especially for Clooney bravely satirizing his gorg, toothy leading man type.

    I want to see this so much. ALL THE WANT. DH asked if i wanted to go see hail caesar and I was like, I did NOT enjoy the 300 so i’m not watching any more wars-of-the-ancients crap with you and he said, no it is coen brothers take on hollywood’s golden age and i was all OH I AM THERE BABE!

  8. Dee says:

    love the reference to the musical movie Anchors Aweigh with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly… I’d see the movie based just on that…

  9. Dani says:

    I absolutely loved this movie, it’s thinky and fun 🙂 Also, great casting ftw!

  10. Missy says:

    Curious if there are any PoC in the film? I know the Coen Bros aren’t known for diversity as such, but it looks extra-super white…

  11. Stefanie Magura says:

    I went to see this movie with my mom, and we were two of about six people in the theatre. Most of them, including mom, didn’t seem to get it, which I can understand, because I thought there were jokes which weren’t quite set up. Having said that, getting the humor of this movie was based on having an understanding of old Hollywood, so if you don’t know that then the humor might fall flat.

  12. Mcgrath says:

    I absolutely love this movie. You watch this movie on Terrarium tv app. To download this movie visit http://terrariumtvappdownload.com

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