All Style and No Substance

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2016)

From the previews of this film, I had a high level of anticipation for the Coen Brothers' latest venture, expecting it to be an hilarious and satiric romp through the halls of 50's Hollywood. The Coens are excellent technicians so the riffs on MGM, 50's Hollywood Stars, and the general machinations of the studio system were very well done. But I'm afraid the film's achievements were pretty much relegated to this dimension and overall the film remained in the category which I term "All Style and No Substance," clever but ultimately delivering a thin story. Along the way there are some wonderful bits, especially Channing Tatum singing and tap dancing in a suggestively gay sailor dance routine, Tilda Swinton playing twin columnists, Alden Ehrenreich doing some hilarious cowboy stunts on a horse and with a lasso, and Ralph Fiennes directing in a sort of prissy manner. However, none of the plot lines ever yielded anything substantive. I found it difficult to figure out just what the Coen Brothers were attempting with this film.