Hail, Caesar! – Movie Review

Hail, Caesar! – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 05 Feb 2016

Hail, Caesar! is a comedy/drama/musical written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The movie tells a sprawling narrative that branches out around Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a manager at a movie studio dealing with a dazzling assortment of problems. Foremost (but barely) is his biggest star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), has been kidnapped and is being ransomed back to the studio.

This isn’t an easy movie to summarize or put in a genre. Every scene jumps onto another movie set where we see various amounts of the scene, the scene being filmed and in some cases the finished or nearly finished scene itself. It all ties itself back into the narrative eventually, but each excursion is fun in and of itself as it plays with long-lost Hollywood genres. Goofy western comedies, water ballets and silly musical numbers along with one particularly hard-to-shoot line all make for fascinating diversions from the devastatingly simple ransom plot.

This is great entertainment on every level and a celebration of movies themselves. It deserves at least one screening in the theater!

Aaron, Cal and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car: