Known for their versatility as storytellers, the Coen Brothers never cease in taking most any genre and putting their own imaginative spin on it. With sharp attention to even the minor details, nearly each pursuit as filmmakers could become a film school discussion. The latest trailer for Hail, Caesar! looks to follow in that pantheon.
Hail, Caesar! unfolds in the 1950s during the production of an epic picture which is costing the studio a fortune starring a famous film star named Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). When Whitlock is held for ransom by a group calling themselves The Future, it falls on Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a fixer hired by the studio, to find the captors. During his investigation, Mannix is introduced to an up and coming song and dance man (Channing Tatum), a Busby Berkeley-esque bombshell (Scarlett Johansson), as well as a slew of A-Lister actors flexing their muscles in off-beat character roles, a true staple of Coen comedies.
In their 30-plus years in the industry, Ethan and Joel Coen have honed a very interesting approach when building a world, especially when it comes to comedies. Allowing even the most inane, secondary characters to have a quirk or backstory that might not feature into the overall plot, though it adds to the story in a memorable way they seem to be an actor’s dream in every sense. We have seen this trait in even their earliest works, such as Raising Arizona (1987) with Nicolas Cage playing that strange balance of subtle and over the top. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and it’s quick witted “newspaper man” speak. Not to mention the stoner/noir detective classic The Big Lobowsky (1998). If the prior are any indication of how excellent Hail, Caesar! could be, they’ve already sold a ticket.
Opening Feburary 5, 2016
