Coen brothers' golden age of Hollywood

Rating: 5/10 (21 September 2016)

It's Hollywood in the 50's. Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is a fixer and producer at Capitol Pictures. Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is the star of the studio's big Biblical production "Hail, Caesar!". He gets kidnapped by a communist cabal and held for ransom. Hobie Doyle is a singing cowboy put into a high class movie directed by Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) is a twice-divorced starlet with a secret pregnancy. Twin sisters Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton) are rival gossip columnists. Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) is a song and dance actor. Various characters go through this unusual day as Eddie tries to fix the many problems.
The Coen brothers deliver a detailed, light, wacky portrayal of the golden age of Hollywood. While I like the fixer idea, Clooney may be a better actor for the role. I'm a little tired of Clooney playing dumb because it is broadly fake. Alden Ehrenreich is somewhat an unknown and a perfect fit for the singing cowboy. He's good. The communist cabal is problematic since the Coens obviously want it to be comedic. It doesn't work because it deals with something serious in a flippant way. The movie gets bogged down with too many things that want to be funny but aren't.