Some good scenes and performances, but overall a misfire

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2017)

A film by the Coen Brothers is always worth checking out, but contrary to their reputation they can either achieve cinematic brilliance (Fargo, Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men) or excruciating lows (Intolerable Cruelty, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou), and a number of in-betweens. Hail, Caesar is definitely not one of their crowning achievements.
The story is set in the heyday of the big Hollywood film studios and centers on studio "fixer" wheeler-dealer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) detailing the various fires he must put out in order to keep production rolling on some the studios future hits. Aside from the usual, Mannix must contend with the ostensible kidnapping of the studio's most popular leading man (George Clooney) from the set of a Ben-Hur style biblical epic by a cabal of Communists and ward off the machinations of twin sister gossip columnists (Tilda Swinton) on the trail of big scandals.
The film should be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it missteps entirely too often and has huge dead spots. The obvious problems with the film hit the viewer pretty quickly. Eddie Mannix was actually a real figure, but the sanitized do-gooder that we see here bears no resemblance to the real thing. Brolin is an amazingly talented actor, but here he is forced to play everything straight as the film's purported anchor, which ends up making Eddie more than a bit of a drag in the central role. In fact, Brolin/Eddie is so stiff here as to be painful.
Worse, the only time the film comes to glorious life and gives us an idea of what a success it could have been, is when it recreates in cheeky fashion some of the set pieces from yesteryear Hollywood. Alas, these moments are too few and far between, as the film gets bogged down in the tedious and criminally unfunny kidnapping plot, which takes up too much screen time and is never as amusing or subversive as the filmmakers believe. Every time we detour to Clooney and his kidnappers, you can almost hear the sigh of frustration from the audience.
An amazing cast has been compiled for the film, but a number of them are wasted. Blink and you may well miss Frances McDormand as a daffy editor or Jonah Hill as a professional patsy. Scarlett Johansson gets a nice homage to Esther Williams spectacles and shines briefly as a tough-talking actress, but is underused. Ditto, Channing Tatum, who dazzles with a Gene Kelly-esque sailor dance routine before being utterly wasted. Clooney hams it up nicely, but he is saddled with the film's worst subplot which pretty much hogties his performance. If there is a standout, it is newcomer Alden Ehrenreich as a Gene Autry-type singing cowboy. Ehrenreich seems to be one of the few acting like he is in a comedy and is perfectly believable as the nice guy rube. Some of the film's few highlights are courtesy of him being forced to step in as a last minute replacement as lead in a British comedy of manners. His miscasting is hilarious and sets off director Ralph Fiennes into spasms of apoplexy.
Alas, the misses far outnumber the hits. The tiresome kidnapping plot that dominates the screen time is ultimately pointless. Between the respectable recreations of old-style Hollywood splendor set pieces, most viewers will be checking their watch. The film is episodic and haphazard - it also needs a decent editor to remove what bits simply do not work. The whole thing culminates into a disappointing viewing experience.