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With the fast and loose farce "Hail, Caesar!," the Coen brothers throw everything but the kitchen sink into their boisterous celebration of old Hollywood.
Eddie Mannix, hilariously played by Josh Brolin, holds the title of head of physical production at Capitol Pictures, but his real job is studio fixer. He's the guy who makes sure the lights are running, the stars show up on time and the cops get paid off to keep starlets from showing up in the gossip columns.
It's a particularly busy day for Eddie, as he's attempting to put out several fires at once. His bathing-beauty star DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) is pregnant and pretty sure she knows who the father is. The studio's unseen owner orders Eddie to put their singing-cowboy star, Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), in a high-society drama, to the chagrin of its urbane director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Twin-sister gossip columnists (both played by Tilda Swinton) are sniffing around for dirt, while Eddie is mulling over an offer to quit show biz for a cushy executive job at Lockheed.
But Eddie's prime headache is the studio's biggest production, a biblical epic called "Hail, Caesar!," with the studio's top star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), in the lead role of a Roman general who encounters Jesus. The production is thrown into chaos when Whitlock disappears, and it's learned that he has been kidnapped.
The plot structure is surprisingly loose for a Coen brothers script, and at times the movie feels more like a series of sketches than a fully fleshed-out narrative. That's not always bad, as it leaves room for such off-the-wall moments as an innuendo-laden tap-dancing number with Channing Tatum and other guys in sailor suits, or brief turns by Jonah Hill (as a stuffy accountant) and Frances McDormand (as a chain-smoking film editor).
The look of the film evokes the grandiose cheesiness of studio backlots, from DeeAnna's splashy mermaid number to a none-too-realistic Russian submarine. Production designer Jess Gonchor and cinematographer Roger Deakins, both veterans in the Coen brothers' crew, clearly are having fun playing in the Hollywood sandbox.
For all its screwball delights, "Hail, Caesar!" is also oddly serious about faith. Eddie, a Catholic, goes to confessional daily, and he moderates a contentious discussion with clergymen over the theological aspects of the studio's biblical epic. Ultimately, though, the Coens show their strongest belief, like Eddie's, is an unshakable faith in the power of movies.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
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'Hail, Caesar!'
A studio executive navigates through several backlot problems in this free-wheeling farce by the Coen brothers.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens Friday, Feb. 5.
Rating • Rated PG-13 for some suggestive content and smoking.
Running time • 106 minutes.