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| Josh Brolin & Tilda Swinton (r) star in Hail, Casear! |
Merrily They Dance
Rotten Tomatoes Plot: Four-time Oscar-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Fargo) write and direct Hail, Caesar!, an all-star comedy set during the latter years of Hollywood's Golden Age. Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar! follows a single day in the life of a studio fixer who is presented with plenty of problems to fix.
Disjointed (to a fault.) Hail, Caesar! has its moments... some of them hilarious; but you have to wonder if two heads (Coen brothers) are really better than one, especially when it comes to satire. Scenes tend to drag on... sometimes for the best (Ehrenreich & Fiennes) and others (Clooney's kidnapping, Tatum's dance number) to its detriment. In between, the Coens wage (a not so subtle) war on Christianity, for what I can only assume is a personal grudge. The movie shines brightest on the lot (Brolin, Newman!) but in the end, there's too much to keep track of, yet alone fix.
Grade: B- (Should be lower, but the exchanges between the aforementioned Ehrenreich & Fiennes had me doubled-over in laughter.)
