I went to see Hail Caesar today, mostly on a whim. Usually I have the movies I want to see planned weeks in advance, but this one wasn't even on my radar until about a week ago when I happened across a preview. It looked reasonably entertaining, and I felt like I could use a comedy after the traumatizing effects of the last few episodes of Merlin (which is a fantastic show I may review in the near future). But mostly I was intrigued by the idea of actors playing actors, and the portrayal of life behind the scenes in Hollywood's "Golden Age".
The movie boast a lot of recognizable names, including George Clooney, Scarlet Johannson, Ralf Fiennes, and Channing Tatum and is set in the 1950's. It centers around Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) the man in charge of a Hollywood studio, and all he goes through to keep movies on schedule, fill parts, and preserve the image of his actors. We follow him through several sets, all showing the different types of movies that were popular in the time period as he tries to find one of his lead actors, Baird Whitlock (Clooney), who has been kidnapped. (Honestly I found viewing the different sets more entertaining than the finding of Whitlock and would probably watch that Channing Tatum musical sailor movie if they felt like making a "spin off"). The movie also shows, though doesn't really address, how different the life of actors at the time was compared to now; how the studio basically owned them and was in charge of their personal as well as professional lives.
The ending was reasonably unpredictable (at least I didn't see that reveal coming) and while I'm still a little confused about why Whitlock was kidnapped at all, I don't think that really matters since the point of the movie was to entertain, not be a dramatic man hunt.
Overall I was entertained by this movie and will probably watch it again once it starts making the occasional television rounds.
Content Review: For the most part, this was a fairly clean movie, but correctly rated PG-13. There was some language, most bothersome the use of Christ, and several instances where sex was hinted at verbally, like "never done this without waking up next to a broad" and the implication of alleged "sodomy" in one character's past. However, nothing actually happened during the events of the movie.
