Disjointed

Rating: 4/10 (25 February 2017)

Was this a comedy? A drama? Who knows! I had a "Free HBO" weekend earlier this month, so I took advantage of it to watch Hail Caesar, a movie that sounded pretty good when I saw the trailer a few years ago. But I was younger and stupider then.
Was it a comedy? If so, why wasn't it funny? "Would that it twere so simple" stopped being funny long before they finally stopped saying it.
Was it a drama? If so, why didn't it keep me at the edge of my seat? The movie opens with George Clooney's character being kidnapped, and leaves us in suspense as to why. Well, not that much suspense, really. I stayed with this film for over an hour before I finally turned it off. I still don't know why he was kidnapped. And I don't care. And never will.
Scarlett Johansson was solid as a hard-bitten 1930's type movie star. But George Clooney was just ... George Clooney in a toga. If he had walked into the studio cold and read his lines from cue cards, I don't think his performance would have been substantially different. Or perhaps we were supposed to believe that George Clooney in a toga is an inherently funny premise, and the mere sight of it would keep us in stitches throughout the movie? There were also a lot of pointless scenes. The swimming musical number at the beginning could easily have been cut out of the movie without losing anything. But then again, so could most of the other scenes in the movie. I understand from some previous reviewers that the swimming scene was intended to be a homage to the Esther Williams movies of the 1930's and 1940's. And indeed it was -- if "homage" is French for boring pointless imitation.
Because I didn't watch the last half hour, I have to confess that the ending could well be a thrilling laugh-filled adventure that pulls the whole movie together and leaves the audience stunned with the brilliance of the film and its commentary on both Depression-era and contemporary Hollywood. Unfortunately, I'll never know. And don't intend to find out.