HAIL, THE COEN BROTHERS! A goof-ball comedy with a soul that's all heart

Rating: 7/10 (18 March 2016)

Misunderstood as a mere satire on the 1950s' Hollywood film industry, Hail, Caesar! is a parable of sorts in which theological debate is conducted through a series of entertaining pastiches of movie genres and a boardroom meeting.
Hail, Caeser!'s key moment comes when Studio executive Eddie MannIx (Josh Brolin) is offered a choice; continue his acts of creation or destroy worlds by joining the board of directors of aeronautics company Lockheed to help with the development and delivery of the H- Bomb. The fact that this offer is made in a Japanese restaurant is darkly comical moment but exactly what we've come to expect from two brothers whose taste for comical macabre is grimmer than the brothers Grimm.
By the time the film ends with a camera tilt slowly revealing a water tower emblazoned with the world BEHOLD, we have learned God's answer. He loves us even if, at times, he has better things to do. The shot itself mirrors the rising periscope and turret of a Russian submarine that emerges off the Californian coast to offer cold comfort to a communist fellowship of discontented writers. it's another great moment in which the follies of atheism, here idolatry and avarice, are played out in the broad Technicolor strokes of a 1950's blockbuster.
It is not clear that film star Baird Whitlock is Christ because religious leaders assembled by Mannix to head off criticism of the studio's biblical epic 'Hail, Caesar!' (the movie within the movie) can't agree whether God even needed a son - although they give the film a green light. TV SF fans will enjoy Robert (Star Trek: Voyager) Picardo's contribution as a kvetching, but ultimately pragmatic, Rabbi.
George Clooney plays Whitlock as an amiable buffoon, susceptible to the blandishments of his communist captors. They want the ransom money to help with the cause but they also want publicity photos of Clooney nibbling cucumber finger food and to win the heart and barely perceptible mind of the star himself. Mannix saves the star's sole with repeated slaps across the face and a chastened Clooney returns to work under the studio system.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the Hollywood gloss, goof-ball performances and show stopping stunts seemed to have misdirected reviewers who have written 'Hail, Caesar!' off as Cohen Brothers Lite. But the campery hides a lot of heart, particularly in a story line that sees singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) called by Mannix to fulfill a role he never wanted to play.
Audacious, witty and knowing, 'Hail, Caeser!' may well test your faith in the people who brought you Fargo and No Country for Old Men, but I must confess that I came away a believer.