Hollywood Valentine bouquet looks pretty but eventually wilts.

Rating: 6/10 (8 February 2016)

Hail, Caesar is a nostalgic tribute to Hollywood movie studios by the Coen brothers that follows a day in the life of famed Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix(Josh Brolin). Covering a myriad of both small and large problems from quitting smoking to saving careers from scandal Caesar is filled with wonderful set pieces, funny arch characters and incidentals but as a whole a scattered mess that doesn't deliver much of a story.
Mannix's day begins rousting a movie siren from career disaster as he pays off cops and cuffs her a few times for her blundering. It's then off to confession where he is racked by lying to his wife about quitting smoking. Then it's a day of keeping religious leaders content, an aquatic star's pregnancy secret and gossip columnists at bay; mulling a job offer with Lockheed and paying off a cabal of commie writers who have kidnapped studio star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney).
Hail, Caesar has a buoyant Hollywood Confidential look that is rich in production design and well lensed by Coen regular Roger Deakins offering up some richly nourish compositions as well as flawless Busby Ballet and On the Town.. Like the rag it offers a variety of stories with characters that come across more as caricatures than real and it dilutes both tension and interest as Mannix moves from one fire to the next while attempting to avoid nicotine along the way.
Brolin's brooding Mannix is spot on but his simmering intensity begs for a meatier plot with higher stakes. Ralph Fiennes and Scarlet Johannes are both broad and hilarious while Francis McDormand in a brief cameo as a film editor nearly steals the film in under two minutes as does Alan Ehrenreich in a lengthier piece as amiable singing cowboy Hobie Doyle. Did I also mention Tilda Swinton playing twin gossip columnists doing the same? Even with the surfeit of entertaining performances the story scatters and it is left up to fans and historians to drain a semblance of interest from the veiled and blatant references to Ester Williams, Tyrone Power, John Wayne, Carmen Miranda, Loretta Young, George Cukor, Clark Gable while using using Paramount and Warner Studios as backdrops to the fictitious Capital Pictures in the film.
With its sleek and colorful mid 20th century look, a half dozen fun performances and some outstanding choreography on land and water Hail, Caesar is filled with entertaining moments but is more a three ring circus than a cohesive story telling and it ultimately disappoints.