Hail, Coenceit!

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2016)

Occasionally the Coen Brothers turn out films with a little substance, but these days it's mostly powder-puff satirical comedies. 'Hail Caesar' belongs firmly in the latter category, with its absurd tale of a lead actor kidnapped by a clique of Communist intellectuals from the set of a campy melodrama about Ancient Roman legionnaires. The studio's Mr Fix-It searches for his lost star while he pacifies the inflated egos of actors, directors and gossip columnists and negotiates with a potential new employer. After about twenty minutes, it becomes obvious the farcical story is just an excuse to serve up some pastiches of 1950s-era movie scenes being filmed on the lot.
The theatrical frolics combined with the half-baked mystery might produce a couple of weak chuckles, but little more. The plot is both fragmented and threadbare, the characters are all stereotypes, and their exchanges no more meaningful than Saturday Night Live skits. There are plenty of insider jokes and caricatures of movie-land personalities, but that's insufficient reason to spend ten seconds analyzing this self-satisfied trifle for subtexts. It's an unambitious, insulting mess, and a waste of everybody's time.