What the Hail Did I Just Watch?

Rating: 2/10 (12 June 2016)

It actually has happened. I watched a Coen-Brothers movie that I absolutely could not stand! "Hail, Caesar" is, without a doubt, one of the worst excuses ever for a movie. In actuality, it does not even come across as a complete movie, rather a bunch of vignettes that could not, under any given circumstances, be linked to form the same movie.
Josh Brolin plays Mannix, a Hollywood "fixer"--i.e. he fixes any kind of problem(s) which may arise on the set of any movie. George Clooney plays Baird Whitlock, the star of the studio's upcoming blockbuster, "Hail Caesar." Seemingly despised by a good majority of the other actors who are under contract to this studio, he is drugged and kidnapped during the filming of this blockbuster. The rub here is he is kidnapped by communist Hollywood writers who lecture him on why they should share in all the profits any movie makes which have been penned by them. Yawn.
Many other stars are also in this movie, albeit for maybe one or two lines, or five minutes of screen time (tops). Scarlett Johanson, Ralph Fiennes, Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton--just to name a few-- appear as various characters who appear nominally for the sake of filler. I did enjoy Tilda Swinton's dual role as gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker. The scene with Fiennes trying to get actual acting out of a hopeless cowboy reject simply went on for too long, thus removing any--and there wasn't much--comedy. I have no clue what/why Channing Tatum's character was all about.
I knew watching this was going to be a 50-50 chance considering it had not been all that long ago this movie had a major nationwide release, yet was now on On-Demand. Rated PG-13 for language, this was just awful.