Starring: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Robert Picardo, Alden Ehrenreich, and Channing Tatum
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 106 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2016
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This American comedy-musical thriller is directed by the highly successful, multiple oscar-winning team of the Coen Brothers, and tracks a brief time in the life of Eddie Mannix, who works for a Hollywood studio called Capital Pictures as its Head of Physical Production. The plot of the movie is set in Hollywood in the 1950s, which is period of Hollywood known as “The Golden Age”.
Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is a devout Catholic, who nervously “confesses” his faults very frequently to his Priest. He is employed to keep the reputation of the industry clean, and to control things so that embarrassing scandals are kept hidden. He fixes especially any problems that occur for film stars. His job is also to water down nosy gossip columnists like the two rival gossip columnists played by Tilda Swinton. Typical of a Coen Brothers movie, one of the stars, who Eddie has been employed to protect, disappears mysteriously. The movie itself is less a “who-done-it? or “why was it done?”, than a satire on Hollywood itself.
Part of Eddie’s job is to monitor the production of an up-and-coming film, titled “Hail, Caesar!: A Tale of the Christ”, so the film is really a movie about the making of a film. It stars a famous super-star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), and during production Baird is kidnapped by a group calling itself “The Future”, which asks for a $100,000 ransom for Baird’s return. “The Future” is a study-group of intellectuals churned up about Hollywood stealing its socially-liberated ideas for profit.
Scarlett Johansson is an actress, DeeAnna Moran, who unexpectedly becomes pregnant as the movie begins production, which swings Eddie into action. Ralph Fiennes hams it up expertly as Laurence Laurentz, a Director, and George Clooney plays a film idol suitably egotistically. The movie has a very different style to what the Coen Brothers usually direct. It has a lightness in its tone, uses a star-studded cast that clearly enjoys what is happening, and the film breaks into musical numbers with a catchy score, as criminal things occur behind the scenes.
The Coen Brothers are famous for their touches of blackness. They are master-craftsmen of movies like “No Country for Old Men” (2007) about people trapped by the craziness of life, who make wrong choices, and end up being punished for them. Here, things are different. The film’s classification rating is as low as PG, which is an unusually permissive rating for a Coen Bros. movie. Channing Tatum tap dances like Gene Kelly, and Scarlet Johansson swims like Esther Williams. Off-stage, dark events unfold and eccentric figures roam around, happily taking responsibility for whatever they do.
Because this is “A Tale of the Christ”, the Coen. Bros. have provocatively put into the film a lively discussion of theological doctrine, but the real targets for their satire are the fatuous epics with religious themes that Hollywood enjoys making so much – like “Quo Vadis” (1951), “The Robe” (1953), and more recent movies that continue the trend, like “Noah” (2014) and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014). “Caesar” is a highly discursive movie, clearly in love with the era that it depicts. The Golden Age of Hollywood is known for taking serious and religious themes and creating cinema that aims only to entertain, and this film sets out both to satirise and enjoy it.
The loose structure of the film allows excellent parodies of different film types, and its comedy sweep is broad. It is full of cross-references for movie-buffs like “Singing in the Rain” (1952), “South Pacific” (1958), and “Ben-Hur” (1959), and it has cameo parts that are very funny. Especially enjoyable are Robert Picardo’s portrayal of a member of a multi-faith panel whose job it is to check the religious accuracy of the films that are made, and Alden Ehrenreich’s performance as a singing-cowboy star, who is miscast in a dramatic role for which he is totally unsuitable.
This movie has been made to be enjoyed as a provocative spoof on Hollywood. It is very well-crafted, and highly entertaining, and it has the Coen Bros.’ very deliberate visual style.
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