Hail, Caesar! is yet another of the Coen brothers' off-beat films

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2016)

As someone who's familiar with Hollywood history, the fact that Josh Brolin played a movie executive named Eddie Mannix and his superior is the unseen Nicholas Schenck-both actual names of movie businessmen, part of me wondered if the studio-Capital Pictures-was the fictional name for M-G-M. The screenplay threw off that tangent when Eddie mentioned the actual Metro studio refusing to lend Clark Gable. Now that I got that out of the way, I'll just say this is another one of Joel and Ethan Coen's creatively unusual movies-the kind you'd only expect them to make. It concerns the makings of the studio's time doing various pictures like a mermaid one, a musical involving sailors, and one involving a Roman soldier discovering the mission of Christ. It's interesting that me and my movie theatre-working friend watched this on Ash Wednesday. There's also a singing cowboy who seems to know more than what he first seems initially. While there are some scenes that are funny, it takes a while to get the plot going since some scenes seem designed to interrupt the flow of the story. No way is this a conventional narrative and I'm sure the Coens prefer it that way. In summary, Hail, Caesar! is worth a look for anyone who likes the unusual.