The trailers showed that Hail, Caesar! was about George Clooney playing an actor in the 1950’s who gets kidnapped by some sort of mob, and the studio head played by Josh Brolin has to try and save him. However, it is actually a lot more than that. Hail Caesar is really a bunch of somewhat interwoven plotlines that all make, as I said before, one big tribute to 1950’s Hollywood. For some people, having all these plotlines going about all at the same time may make the film seem cluttered and unfocused. However, I thought everything was fine as it was. I wouldn’t say it was all perfect, but I found it to be enjoyable.
For the most part, each subplot is well written and engaging. The dialogue in most of the scenes is very intriguing, well acted, and extremely funny. There were a few moments where the writing didn’t quite make its mark, such as scenes where it either wasn’t as funny as it could’ve been or as engaging as it should have been. But it was only for a few moments that I felt that. The rest of the time the writing was exceptionally good, or even great.
The actors all did a phenomenal job as well. There was not a single weak performance out of anyone! Josh Brolin as the studio head is darn near Oscar worthy! Alden Ehrenreich, a lesser known actor, was probably the funniest out of all of them, playing a cowboy/western actor trying to do a drama. Scarlett Johansson, while not in the movie that much, nailed that nasally, upstuck 50’s accent! And Channing Tatum’s scenes… oh boy. I know that some people will say that many of the actors are a bit underused, a couple only making cameos, and I can see why they’d be disappointed. The actors were a big part of the marketing, and Jonah Hill, for instance, only has one scene, and it’s less than 5 minutes long. He didn’t even do much, either. Some other actors had similar fates, but not nearly as bad as Jonah Hill got it.
As I stated before, I wouldn’t call this film perfect. But whatever it doesn’t do quite right, the remainder of the film more than makes up for it. Sometimes the pacing and tone don’t go hand in hand, nor flow very smoothly, but those parts don’t last long enough to really bring the enjoyment of the film down. At least, it was that way for me.
My favorite parts were the movies within the movie. Each character is working on some production, and the clips of their movie that were shown actually feel like something that could possibly be from that time period. They're shot almost exactly like they would be back in the day, with soundstages and painted backdrops, the lighting tricks and acting styles, and they even made some of the audio seem old and muffled! There was just as much effort put into the fake movies as there was in the real one!
One other thing that I thought the film did perfectly was its narrative on Hollywood as a whole. The problems with Hollywood that we all see in the tabloids and magazines today, some people think “Hollywood is horrible these days! Why can’t it be more like the 1950’s? That was like, the golden age! None of this stuff ever happened!” But in reality, almost each and every issue, such as lies, secrecy, scandals, overglorification, behind-closed-doors types of deals, people not getting credit they deserve, people getting too much credit, complications with every single aspect of the filmmaking process… all of this (which is too much to list) was going on in the 1950’s as well. It was happening then, it was happening long before that time, and it will continue to happen. Hail, Caesar! is clearly made by people who are well aware of all the problems and issues with Hollywood and the film industry, but love it all the same. They accept it, embrace it, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
Because of that, I feel like Hail, Caesar! was intended not for common moviegoers, but people who are sort of ‘film buffs’ that would be able to catch the overarching message and understand it. Maybe that’s why some people simply don’t know what to think of this movie. It could very well be the reason.
In conclusion, I myself enjoyed Hail, Caesar! very much. It’s definitely one of the more interesting films that I’ve gone to see in theaters, and I’m glad I saw it. The acting was superb, the writing was mostly great, the narrative on the timelessness of Hollywood’s problems was awesome. If you’re not sure whether you’d like this or not, I can’t exactly tell you what to think. It’s all up to your personal preference. The only way to really know is to find out for yourself by going to see it while it’s in theaters.
FINAL RATING: 40 / 50
STORY: 4 / 5
ACTING: 5 / 5
CHARACTERS: 4 / 5
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 4 / 5
COMEDY: 4 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 4 / 5
TONE: 4 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 4 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 3 / 5
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