Fun, funny but overall a slight mess

Rating: 7/10 (9 March 2016)

I love the coen brothers. Raising Arizona is one of my favourite comedies, Fargo is great and No Country For Old Men is one of my favourite movies, so going into this I was rather hopeful. I left happy but a bit disappointed.
The film centres around the day in the life of a Hollywood executive, at least for the most part. There are so many different characters and stories going on at once, that the film gets rather muddled. It really needed to just focus on one aspect, instead of multiple stories.
The acting from everyone is great, they really make their characters feel like real people. And Alden Ehrenreich came out of nowhere, he was fantastic.
I feel the set design and the costume design are the best parts of the film. The costumes look like they are from the time period, and so do all the sets and locations. They really make it feel like it is the 1950's. And the films in production in this Hollywood studio are also really well designed and planned out. Channing Tatums major scene in the film really shows how much care the coen brothers put into this film.
The cinematography from Roger Deakins is also excellent. And the score fits the time period perfectly.
However the faults lie in the script and the story telling. It's narratively not engaging and it's not as funny as it should have been. I feel I could push it to an 8/10 if it were funnier, but it wasn't. It was funny don't get me wrong, but it's not as funny as say Raising Arizona.
But overall it's a fun time at the movies and it might get better on a second viewing.