Hail,
Caesar!
(2016)
(SPOILERS) A
Coen Brothers film is always one of my two or three most anticipated in any
year, and I’m a devotee of their “frivolous” pictures more than most (and, despite what others would have you
believe to the contrary, this is one
of their more frivolous pictures; you could assert Intolerable Cruelty has a profound subtext if you so wished). Hail Caesar! had a knockout trailer, one
that promised a plenitude of hijinks, wit and wackiness. Unfortunately, it’s a
case of a promotional reel that hangs together far better than the whole deal.
It’s strange to write this, but for a writer-director-producer multi-hyphenate duo
due generally renowned for their discipline and economy, Hail, Caesar! is by far the slovenliest, most indulgent entry in
their career. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t often a lot of fun, or even bottom of
their estimable pile, but it’s as if they smoked one of the Dude’s doobies, became
distracted from where they were supposed to be going, and went bowling instead
of polishing off another few drafts (or, more fundamentally, breaking down the
structure).
Maybe this
goes back to Hail, Caesar!’s genesis
as a half-formed, freely-voiced spitball rather than a completely solid kernel
of an idea. Originally, it was supposed to be the third in the Clooney “numbskull
trilogy” (it has now become the fourth), concerning a theatre troop attempting
to put on a play about ancient Rome. But it was evidently never more than a
conversation piece, since Clooney is still there, and Caesar! is still there, yet both are decidedly on the side-lines;
this is a picture as much and as nebulously informed by its title as O Brother Where Art Thou, but unlike the
solidly stringed-together odyssey of that film, this comprises, for the most
part, a baggy collection of amusing but inconsequential ‘50s Hollywood homages.
Each of
these, from Scarlett Johansson’s DeeAnna Moran in a musical mermaid number, to
Alden Ehrenreich’s crooning cowboy-on-the-range Hobie Doyle performing
acrobatic horse tricks, to Channing Tatum’s Burt Gurney’s carefree sailor engaging
in a smirkingly homo-erotic dance routine, is lovingly staged, exposing the
quaint opulence of the period while simultaneously revelling in it (The Wall
Street Journal reviewer who surmised from all this that the Coens hate movies
is frankly talking out of his arse). Best of these is naturally The Robe-esque Hail, Caesar! itself, complete with Clooney Shatner-ing it up in
supreme ham mode as Autolycus (destined to be touched by Jesus) while stalwart
Gracchus (the peerless Clancy Brown) looks on with increasing bewilderment.
They’re marvellously
created, perfectly-formed asides, but they’re entirely static in terms of contributing
to a greater story. It’s bizarre to behold. One senses the brothers are almost being
bloody-minded about it, since they’re two of the best judges of pacing in the
business. Perhaps they were sitting in the editing suite smirking softly to
themselves (not, like Frances McDormand, getting their scarves caught in the projector,
so suffering an impromptu garrotting), contemplating the point where the
audience will finally tire of waiting for the plot-proper to kick in.
Because it
never happens. Nominally, the glue that binds these vignettes together is Josh
Brolin’s studio fixer Eddie Mannix. But he isn’t sufficient, not because of his
character (a formidable mixture of Catholic softy, fretting over cheating on
his wife by sneaking cigarettes, and hired thug, not batting an eye over
getting rough with studio assets when they threaten its well-being), but
because there’s no greater momentum.
It isn’t as
if this kind of studio tour can’t work like gangbusters. Everyone from Tim
Burton to Joe Dante to John McTiernan – to the Coens themselves in Barton Fink – has had a ball recreating and
commenting on the studio system, but they haven’t tended to lose sight of the
finishing line. Hail, Caesar! isn’t
even entirely sure where its starting marks are.
There’s a
shaggy dog nature to Mannix’s rambling through his various stars’ and starlets’
tribulations and troubles, from DeeAnna’s pregnancy (featuring Jonah Hill, well
cast as the go-to-guy for taking on guilty secrets, even serving time if the
price is right), to Hobie wooing Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) for the sake
of a few column inches, to the same being dropped into a Laurence Laurentz (a fantastic
Ralph Fiennes, on Grand Budapest
form, but in a scene you could see in one of the trailers – so again, the
trailers offer the superior highlights) prestige melodrama and finding himself
hopelessly at-sea, to dealing with the various issues arising from the studio’s
biblical epic (Clooney’s Blair Whitlock has gone missing – drugged and
kidnapped by absurdly exaggerated yet rather dull communists – and Mannix must
also take soundings from religious leaders with regard to the film’s potential
for causing offence; Robert Picardo’s irascible rabbi absolutely rules this
scene, refusing to acknowledge the status of Christ but eventually forced to
conclude that the picture itself is relatively innocuous, as these things go). All
the ingredients are there, but they fail to cohere into a juggling act whereby
these different problems are satisfyingly contemplated and resolved.
One might
claim Hail, Caesar! has lofty
notions behind its shallow exterior, inquiring into relative systems and values
of authority, faith and power, as reflected in the various belief structures of
its players (hence the mockery of the exclamatory title, of bowing one’s knee
or saluting another as superior). Mannix personifies the weight and influence
of the studio, but is being wooed by Lockheed, who claim his job is unimportant
and foolish and that he should be doing something of substance (like, atomic
bomb-related substance). Yet, for all that he finds his job a pain, he knows he’s
good at it, and has clear ideas about others’ places in the food chain.
Hobie (who
shows considerably more acumen and resources in sniffing out the perpetrators
and rescuing Baird than one would expect from his good ‘ol demeanour) is
content to be ordered about, while the likes of Laurentz and Whitlock need
putting in their places (the latter hilariously so when he begins brazenly
regurgitating the commies’ commie talk in front of Mannix). Tilda Swinton’s
twin gossip rag writers Thora and Thessaly Thacker exist to scavenge on
whatever scraps Mannix feeds them. Mannix is pretty much God in this equation,
and so doesn’t feel like a cog in the machine, even if he is (notably, when he reaffirms
his mojo, he cuts off his imparting priest off mid-sentence; his belief is a
prop as much as it is a devotion).
The
communists occupy the positions of lowly, disabused writers, but secretly all
they want is to suck greedily on the corporate teat (to the extent that, when
commie spy Gurney saves his beloved pooch at the expense of their ransom, all
eyes are on it sinking beneath the waves). When Whitlock fluffs his line,
standing before Calvary, his forgotten word is “faith” (so ruining a choice piece of phoney emotion-stirring that
has everyone on set welling up).
However, I
think attempting to divine something truly sincere or insightful from all this
is a mug’s game. There’s no real triumph to Mannix’ decision to stay with the
studio, because the Coens have never taken the time to make us care about any
of it, not the characters and certainly not the plot. Like the narrative
structure, their themes are a hotchpotch of ideas they haven’t bothered to iron
out. Or: maybe that’s the point, that
none of the authority figures or structures in the picture, including themselves
as filmmakers, the purposefully slacking-off master builders, are to be
worshipped, obeyed, or otherwise venerated. Which might be an excuse for delivering a movie that’s a little bit shonky.
Which makes
all this sound like a failure. But even a Coen Brothers failure is by relative degrees.
Mannix’ scenes with the communists, who turn out to be far from threatening, are
delightfully surreal; he isn’t forcibly detained and shows no inclination to
escape. This collection of dissenters is only really united by their
disaffection, rather than true ideals (David Krumholtz is particularly funny as
a permanently contrary voice, disputing anything anyone else says).
Occasionally,
they successfully blur the lines between studio artifice and Coens artifice;
the scene where Gurney is rowed out to a Soviet sub (captained by one Dolph
Lundgren) looks for all the world like a clip from one of the movies we’ve just
seen Mannix viewing. Towards the end, the picture threatens to galvanise itself
into something actually intriguing, as Hobie follows Gurney and happens upon
Baird (all great Coen character names as usual). Yet this is the kind of
spluttering uncertainty you get from a misfiring engine.
Everyone sequestered
to this latest Coens conceit marvellous, even if they’re probably left wishing
– like those who leap at the chance to work with Woody Allen – that this had
been one of their zingers, rather than an also-ran. I haven’t mentioned Wayne
Knight’s dodgy extra, Christopher Lambert’s incomprehensible Scandinavian
director Arne Slessum, or Michael Gambon’s casually inviting narrator, but
they’re fantastic. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is right-on-the-money, while
Carter Burwell’s score may not be one of his classics, but it’s very
recognisably a Carter Burwell score.
Where does Hail, Caesar! position itself in their
illustrious oeuvre? Somewhere above The Ladykillers
(underrated, but nevertheless their weakest) and about on par with the similarly
uneven The Man Who Wasn’t There,
probably. I’d argue the brothers are allowed an off-movie every decade or so,
and they’re coming away from five-back-to-back great ones. Hail, Caesar! lacks the full-tilt effortlessness we’ve come to
expect, yet still it stutters along, with them blithely disinterested in any
misgivings anyone else may have. Which is an enviable position to occupy, but perhaps
a slightly foolhardy one.
