Baird’s scenery chewing as he and the rest of the cast end a scene of their Biblical epic by laughing heartily for a good twenty seconds is priceless. The whole movie is a love letter to the old studio system that made up Hollywood’s “golden age”, and the directors send up that system with loving affection. The movie-within-a-movie portions of Hail, Caesar are also a highlight of the picture. The big reveal of who their leader is, and his attempt to return to Mother Russia is equal parts ludicrous and hysterical. They are a collection of pompous, bumbling red-sympathizers who are as inept as they are committed to their cause of defeating capitalism. Joel and Ethan utterly delight in taking the piss out of the group of screenwriters who kidnap Whitlock. The Coens are at it again in Hail, Caesar. The titular character in Barton Fink was condemned in some circles as being an ineffectual and snobbish liberal who claimed to speak for the common man, but actually knew nothing about, and even looked down on, his supposed muse. Left leaning critics of the Coen’s work have attacked the brothers in the past for their apparent glee in mocking liberal Hollywood stereotypes. Two of those untrustworthy extras I mentioned earlier drug and kidnap Whitlock at the behest of the most nefarious of movie types: Hollywood screenwriters. It’s clearly a stand-in for Ben-Hur, and the Coens even go so far as subtitling their fictional epic A Tale of the Christ. He’s close to finishing the big-budget Biblical feature Hail, Caesar, about a Roman soldier who has a transformative experience with Jesus of Nazareth. Whitlock is brash, magnetic, and a little bit of a dim bulb. He’s also having fun with his own real life persona as the successor to those leading men of a bygone era. Clooney is playing Whitlock as a stand-in for every matinée idol from Hollywood’s gilded age from Kirk Douglas to Charlton Heston. It all starts with George Clooney’s Baird Whitlock. Eddie (and the movie) is caught up in hijinks hilarious enough to fill two slapstick comedies. If all that seems a little heavy for a fast-paced farce, don’t fret. Actress Alison Pill turns up in one brief scene as Connie, Eddie’s wife, and in less than three minutes she manages to convey a lifetime of quiet desperation. Mannix loves his job, but realizes it forces him to neglect his wife and kids. The Coens use Eddie as a way to explore the hard-driven 1950s business man – imagine if Mad Men’s Don Draper had decided to go into the movie business instead of advertising – while putting their own indelible comedic spin on him. His taciturn demeanor, yet emotive face, turn the character into a living, breathing relic from another age. Josh Brolin was born for the role of studio honcho Mannix. Whether it’s figuring out a plan to hide the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of America’s sweetheart, or forcing the effete director of high-society melodramas to accept a Roy Rogers type as his new leading man, it’s all in a day’s work for Mannix. Set in 1951, Hail, Caesar details two days in the life of Capital Pictures head of production and “fixer” Eddie Mannix. Not to mention the performances of the expertly cast ensemble, and the propulsive energy of the madcap story. There are enough laughs, however, to ensure almost anyone can enjoy the picture. Even movie extras are lampooned, described by one character as being untrustworthy. The references range from Busby Berkeley choreography to the singing and dancing cowboy movie star to a central plot point revolving around the Hollywood anti-communist blacklist, all staples of Hollywood at the time. Hail, Caesar is a bit inside baseball, to borrow sports terminology, for those who don’t claim to be cinephiles. You don’t need a detailed understanding of, or obsession with, Hollywood history (especially the late ‘40s and early ‘50s) to fully enjoy the movie, but it certainly helps. Hail, Caesar is the Coen brothers’ first pure farcical comedy since 2008’s Burn After Reading, and it’s their best work in the style since 1998’s The Big Lebowski.
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