HAIL CAESAR! directed by Joel & Ethan Coen (USA,2016)
Friends, Romans,countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Hail Caesar!, not to praise it.
We all love the Coen Brothers, and not without cause, yet I am sad to report that this is one mess of a movie.
It’s as if the siblings decided to do a cut and paste job based on ideas left over from earlier films, then phoned round all their favorite actors to see who was available for a two hour love in.
There are some clever and amusing scenes but none of them lead anywhere because there is no coherent storyline to tie them together.
Along with the equally dire Burn After Reading from 2008, it is plain that what we have here is an ensemble cast that had more fun making a movie than the audience have watching it. Continue reading
This movie is two and a half hours of pure Bond bunkum which starts promisingly but, unlike the superior Skyfall, is content to fall back on style over substance.
Wes Anderson is one of the great originals of modern cinema. In his relatively short career to date he has already developed a fascinating style that is completely his own.
