‎Hail, Caesar! (2016) directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Hail, Caesar!

2016 Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Lights. Camera. Abduction.

Tells the comedic tale of Eddie Mannix, a fixer who worked for the Hollywood studios in the 1950s. The story finds him at work when a star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming.

Josh Brolin George Clooney Alden Ehrenreich Ralph Fiennes Scarlett Johansson Tilda Swinton Channing Tatum Frances McDormand Jonah Hill Veronica Osorio Heather Goldenhersh Alison Pill Max Baker Fisher Stevens Patrick Fischler Tom Musgrave David Krumholtz Greg Baldwin Patrick Carroll Fred Melamed John Bluthal Alex Karpovsky Armazd Stepanian Allan Havey Robert Pike Daniel Robert Picardo Ian Blackman Geoffrey Cantor Christopher Lambert Show All…

106 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½ 12

What is Hail, Caesar!? What isn’t Hail, Caesar!? It’s a comedy, a noir, a historical epic, a musical (of two different varieties), and a melodrama. It’s a movie about the glory days of the industry that churns them out, and how the system so often resembled 1,000 spinning plates wobbling in perfect harmony for a split second. It’s a film about faith, and the pivotal role that it plays in one man’s search for meaning amidst the chaos of existence. It’s a tale of the Christ, told by two Jews who wouldn’t trust Jesus to save a cat out of a tree, let alone someone’s mortal soul. That is to say: It’s a Coen brothers movie, and one of their…
Review by Evan ★★★½ 13

There was a point in time when I didn't like Channing Tatum; what a fucking idiot I was.

The film is very entertaining, but its kind of all over the place. There's A LOT of great scenes, but the movie itself didn't completely come together for me. Definitely enjoyed it overall though.

Like a good chunk of the Coen Brothers' filmography; this is definitely one I'm going to have to watch more than once to fully appreciate it. Heck, I didn't care much for The Big Lebowski after my first watch and now I've seen it 10+ times. That film is my Bible.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 8

92/100

"Would that it were so simple.”

Hail, Caesar! begins with the image of a crucifix as a solemn hymn silently sings within a quiet church, establishing an earnest degree of gravity in a surrounding world of profound, bewildering zaniness. It is in this opening image, soon dissolving into a close-up of Christ’s universal display of sacrifice, where we meet the Coens; not as filmmakers, but as autobiographers. That’s not to say that Hail, Caesar! is strictly about any specific experience, but it feels mined from within, a slapstick-y scream of annoyance and frustration that continuously trails back, wounded but energized, to the swelling love of cinema.

Much can be stated about the film’s pure aesthetic pleasures, evoking the classicism…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 6

49/100

[original one-sheet]

Not the Coens' worst (though it's close), but easily their laziest. Structurally, it's a disaster, continually and arbitrarily switching back and forth between puckish character study (of a surprisingly bland character) and goofy ensemble piece—it's as if (a blander) Llewyn Davis had wandered into Burn After Reading, which would do neither Llewyn nor BAR's clockwork plotting any favors. More than that, though, Hail, Caesar! plays like 21st-century Woody Allen, which is to say that it feels like they wrote exactly one draft and then immediately shot it. (Casting tons of recognizable faces in forgettable bit parts—did they really need Alex Karpovsky to walk around a room snapping photos?—heightens the resemblance.) So many potentially terrific ideas never amount…
Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 6

DIVINE PRESENCE TO BE SHOT

the coen's oeuvre is a varied one chalk full of different genres, ideas, characters etc, sometimes light & wacky, other times heavy & serious but there is a constant -- the coen's love to tell stories about individuals pointlessly (but endearingly) fighting the stupid, chaotic, contradictory systems that, for whatever reason, control human life. whether it be the existential grasping of A Serious Man or Barton Fink, or the straight-up moronic confusion of Burn After Reading ("all bureaucracy, no mission"), the coen's never fail to argue for the little guy's individualism in systems that see no value in them. they're just as humanistic as they are nihilistic. and in this regard Hail, Caesar is the coen brothers…
Review by Josh Larsen ★★★★½ 24

Hail, Caesar! is many things: a rip-roaring ode to old-fashioned entertainment (dancing, swimming, lassoing and the like); a silly farce peppered with wordplay, innuendo and wit; and a chronicle of spiritual crisis, in which one man tries to find his ultimate purpose. But mostly it's a creative clarion call to celebrate the way cinema can be all of these things, sometimes even at once. This is the Coens’ Sullivan’s Travels, a meta comedy that wants to deflate the pretensions of Hollywood even as it’s giving the movies themselves a giant hug. As such, it might just be their magnum opus.

Full review here.

Recent reviews

Review by Alice Hamel ★★★½

there's a moment where josh brolin slaps george clooney and i wish josh brolin would slap me too
Review by Nuala ★★★★½

i have never not enjoyed a coen brothers movie
Review by Michael_Elliott ★★

The Coen Brother's latest has Josh Brolin playing Eddie Mannix, a studio "fixer" who makes sure stars stay out of trouble and that reporters never report the bad stuff. His studio is making an epic religious movie but star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is kidnapped by communist while country star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) tries to cross over into melodrama.

HAIL, CAESAR! is a movie I really, really wanted to love but it just doesn't work. The film is obviously a passion project because it gives the Joel and Ethan Coen a chance to play around with former studio films like the religious epic, the musical with sailors and you've even got a pinch of film noir. The movie is…
Review by ‘Kay ★★½

So Alden Ehrenreich has play both Han Solo and budget Indiana Jones - he really be here putting himself out here as young Harrison Ford. If I could use a lasso I too would twirl it around if I got bored waiting for someone.
Review by Eldyd

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

재밌다
Review by Armin Roshdi ★★★

An homage to classic Hollywood with some great performances all round - Clooney, Tatum and Brolin being stand outs - but it's also very self indulgent to the point where it forgets to be a movie and instead is simply the Coen Brothers' love letter to all old school genres. There's a good story but it gets needlessly convoluted amongst the many names and subplots thrown your way. It also feels about 20 minutes too long.

It's a film for film lovers - even then it's devisive - and has some truly entertaining moments throughout but it wasn't compelling enough to keep me hooked and ended up a bit stale by the time the credits rolled.
Review by Tom Rice ★★★½

Very difficult to condense my thoughts on this one since there is so much packed into this film. I'll start by saying I don't think I made the best decision in choosing this as my jumping on point for the Coen brothers since it is so boldly different to most other cinema but that isn't to take away from the fact that I had a really good time.

Firstly the movie is hilarious. The humour is often subtle and quite slapstick at times (an intentional choice since the film is set in post-war 60's Hollywood) but I found that it worked really well for me here. The comedic standout for me being Alden Erenrich. I really liked his performance in…
Review by jcb ★★★★

remember when channing tatum played the gay communist
Review by Nick Adams ★★½

Ehhhh. Ultimately just left me cold. Didn’t like Brolin as the lead. A few too many plot lines and barely any humor or cleverness. My reaction is that I had no reaction.