The Coen Brothers have always been critical darlings, but their 17th film, the 1950s Hollywood-set comedy ¡°Hail, Caesar!¡± has shown an unusually wide gap between critical raves and tepid audience response. This despite a star-studded cast that includes George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum and Ralph Fiennes.
I come not to bury ¡°Caesar¡± but to praise it ... but, aw, hell, we all know where that¡¯s going, so I may as well just plunge the knife in: ¡°Hail, Caesar!¡± ranks in the Coens¡¯ filmography somewhere above ¡°The Ladykillers¡± but below ¡°Intolerable Cruelty,¡± which is to say it has its moments, but not nearly enough of them.
Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, an old-time ¡®50s studio fixer whose job is to keep the unsavory episodes of Capitol Pictures¡¯ stars out of the headlines. (The character is loosely based on a real MGM exec of the same name who oversaw stars like Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.) He¡¯s got his hands full with pregnant and unwed swimsuit star DeeAnna Moran (Johansson) and singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), an eligible bachelor who¡¯s trying to cross over from hayseed to romantic lead.
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