Frivolous fun

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2017)

Hail Caesar! A Tale of the Christ is a slight but subversive tale of Hollywood's role as the soft power of the US of A's own imperial project, Plot and themes are gloriously upstaged by the film's pastiche of Hollywood's kitsch excesses. There's synchronised swimming, a saucy sailors' song and dance routine, crooning cowboys, and some great cameos: George Clooney stars as a malleable, dumb beefcake actor; Ralph Fiennes as a dilettante Old World director aghast at the crassness of the studio's latest protégé; Frances Macdormand as a jaded, chain smoking editor. But it is Alden Caleb Ehrenreich who steals the show as the studio's very own singing cowboy. A slight film when all is said and done, it is nonetheless beautifully rendered and fabulously silly - and it also features The Christ in a blonde wig