‘Caesar!’ entertaining for momentary spurts
The Coen Brothers have never played by conventional rules when it comes to their films. They have fused, blended, mashed up and twisted genres to create unique cinematic experiences that feel rooted in real life, but quickly diverge into their own little self-contained universe.
They have created indelible characters throughout the years, from Jeff Bridges’ iconic “The Dude” Lebowski to Frances McDormand’s pregnant sheriff Marge Gunderson in “Fargo” to Nicolas Cage’s H. I. McDunnough in “Raising Arizona.”
In their 17th feature film, “Hail, Caesar,” Joel and Ethan mostly play it for yuks, but veer into film noir, musicals, dramas, and historical epics for its run time. And despite the strengths in certain segments, it seems as though they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
Brimming with a cast that could pack four feature films (George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum - and that’s just for starters), “Caesar” bubbles with star power both in front of and behind the camera, with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins reaching far into his pockets for sumptuous images.
Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, a hard-edged film executive (whose name sounds too good for reality, but is actually based on a real person), who is also responsible for “fixing” the various illicit escapades of the stars of (fictional) Capital Pictures in the 1950s. When one of their lead stars, Baird Whitlock (played by Clooney), is kidnapped, it sends his already-chaotic life into a tailspin.
The film weaves in and out of the various in-production releases on the lot, including an Esther Williams-style musical (with Johansson, who is in all of three scenes), a persnickety-but-revered director (played by Ralph Fiennes, who is in two scenes), a gosh-golly Fred Astaire-like musical (with Channing Tatum, who is astounding in all three of his scenes), and it is all covered by twin gossip columnists (both played by Tilda Swinton, in two scenes… or is that four scenes?).
There are moments of glory in “Caesar.” The aforementioned Tatum dance number could have been plucked right out of MGM’s heydey, and Alden Ehrenreich, who has played in a host of minor films prior to this, is an absolute breakthrough as the aw-shucks acrobatic cowboy who lands leading-man status.
The deeper your knowledge of all things Hollywood of the era, the better you may appreciate the film. But it is all perhaps too much of a good thing, as it never fully clicks as full-on satire, as it bounces from slapstick to serious with abrupt randomness (the entire subplot involving Mannix’s struggle to stay or jettison to a new airline gig applies the brakes to any momentum built, as does the Communist group that kidnaps Whitlock). And it never coheres fully to equal the sum of its parts. All the stars seem to enjoy the loosey-goosey roles they are given, but, as noted, we never get to spend much time with any of them. And the quasi-religious underpinnings throughout are rather awkwardly interjected as well. It’s entertaining for momentary spurts, but it’s nowhere near the level of Coen creation when they are working at their peak (“Raising Arizona,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Fargo”). “Hail, Caesar” is for die-hard fans only; all others will say “Hail, No!”
