Hail, Caesar!

"It's complicated."

Eddie Mannix (Brolin) is the head of production at Capitol Pictures.  He also handles the scandals of the studios stars.  His reputation leads to a job offer from the Lockheed Corporation, which he is still considering.  At the same time Baird Whitlock (Clooney), the star of the studios new epic, is missing and is halted.  He was kidnapped by a group of Communist screenwriters, who send a ransom to the studio.

Meanwhile, swimming star DeeAnna Moran (Johansson) is pregnant and unmarried.  She isn't sure who is the father and doesn't want to get married, but the studio can't handle the scandal.  And the head of the studio wants to change the reputation of singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Ehrenreich).  They want to turn him into a leading man, and cast him director Laurence Laurentz (Fiennes) latest film.  And Mannix has to fend off feuding gossip columnists (and identical twins) Thora Thacker (Swinton) and Thessaly Thacker (Swinton).  Can he save the day and make a decision about his job / future?


Joel and Ethan Coen first imagined making a film about Old Hollywood while filming O' Brother Where Art Thou? in 1999, but didn't actually start filming until 2013.  The story, by the Coen brothers, takes place in 1951.  In was the time of the Cold War and the threat of communism was everywhere, and movies were an escape from reality.  The film focuses on a fictional movie studio that is making a grand Roman epic, an adaptation of a well-known novel, and a musical.  The main characters are reminiscent of 1950s Hollywood stars.  DeeAnna is a swimming movie star, similar to Esther Williams.  Holbie could be any number of southern actors who started in westerns.  The Thacker twins were based on gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and rival columnists / twin sisters Eppie Lederer (who wrote "Ask Ann Landers") and Pauline Phillips (who wrote "Dear Abby").  Burt Gurney is based on Gene Kelly.  And Eddie Mannix is based on MGM producer E.J. Mannix.

The film is filled with Coen regulars.  Frances McDormand, who is married to Joel Coen and has appeared in 7 of their other films (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading), has a small role as editor C.C. Calhoun.  This is their 4th collaboration with George Clooney (O' Brother Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading) and 3rd with Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, True Grit).

The has promise and a great cast... but it never amounts to anything.  The best scene is Channing Tatum tap dancing in the musical.  Other moments are ok and make you think the film will be build to something great, but it never does.  It feels like a bunch of disjointed stories... Eddie Mannix is an interesting character, but they tried to throw too many characters / plots together.  It isn't terrible, but it isn't great either.

Hail, Caesar! (2016) 106 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for some suggestive content and smoking
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin as Eddie Mannix
George Clooney as Baird Whitlock
Alden Ehrenreich as Hobie Doyle
Ralph Fiennes as Laurence Laurentz
Jonah Hill as Joseph Silverman
Scarlett Johansson as DeeAnna Moran
Frances McDormand as C.C. Calhoun
Tilda Swinton as Thora Thacker / Thessaly Thacker
Channing Tatum as Burt Gurney
Michael Gambon as Narrator