Hail, Caesar!

Score:  ***1/2 out of ***** (B)

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Channing Tatum, et. al.
Running time:  106 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  The Coen brothers' latest film is a Hollywood-based comedy with an impressive roster of stars.  However, it's also a deceptive one; the main focus is not what you (or at least I) thought and screen time is limited for many stars.  I didn't like the change of focus but it is quite funny and both Clooney and new guy Ehrenreich are great.  This will be just right for some, and not at all for others.


Set in 1951, Eddie Mannix (Brolin) is head of production at a Hollywood studio.  While the pay is good and the industry is exciting, his star performers give him plenty of headaches.  The studio's main film in production is the title, starring one of the biggest actors in the world, Baird Whitlock (Clooney).  In the middle of one day of shooting, Whitlock goes missing, but Mannix brushes it off; he has more fires to put out.  One of them is DeeAnna Moran (Johansson), whose surprise pregnancy Mannix is desperate to keep secret.  Another of his stars, Hobie Doyle (Ehrenreich), a singing Western actor, gets thrown into a prestigious drama directed by the esteemed Laurence Laurentz (Fiennes) who is maddened by Doyle's lack of nuance.  As Mannix deals with all this and more, he receives a ransom note: a group calling itself "the Future" demands $100,000 for the safe return of his star Whitlock.

The trouble keeps piling on, as Mannix is confronted by competing twin reporters (Swinton) alleging a Whitlock scandal.  It all makes a recent offer from Lockheed Corporation sound very tempting to Mannix, who could leave all the drama and frustration behind.  But he is determined to keep it all together - one way or another.

As appropriate for a movie about Hollywood, Hail, Caesar! boasts a star-studded cast.  Josh Brolin plays the lead, Mannix, a very competent and calm but weary executive.  He plays the straight man in a cast of colorful characters and does it well; he balances Mannix by keeping him as the anchor of the story but allowing his co-stars to take the spotlight.  George Clooney's Whitlock is the primary "actor" character.  While I almost always enjoy Clooney, he is particularly good here as the confident but bumbling star.  He displays great, nuanced physical comedy and carries one of the film's best scenes in which he builds a serious mood and concludes with hilarity.  Alden Ehrenreich, one of the few faces you won't recognize, plays talented star Hobie Doyle.  Despite his unfamiliarity, he shines in the role and is maybe the funniest part of the whole movie.  Almost the reverse of Whitlock, Doyle is deceptively simple yet good-hearted and able to see what others overlook.  Ralph Fiennes has a pretty small role as director Laurentz (make sure you pronounce it right!) but is noteworthy for how good - and funny - he is.  Honestly, the rest of the big-name cast has small roles not worth going into any detail.  In fact, there are some supporting roles that are more noteworthy.

A mostly light hearted comedy, Hail, Caesar! has both some very good, and some very frustrating, elements in my view.  First, I want to note that the trailer and commercials had me fooled: I thought that the focus of the story was the kidnapping of (and attempt to rescue) Clooney's Whitlock.  That is a significant part of the film, but the main idea is instead a "day in the life" of a Hollywood producer (Brolin's Mannix).  This is not a completely terrible thing, but it took me a long time to adjust to it (I'm probably just slow to catch on).  So, be prepared!  Within that framework, there are some very fun moments.  Clooney and Ehrenreich's characters, as mentioned, are highlights.  Much of the humor is based on chuckles here and there except those two consistently amusing roles.  Ehrenreich's earnest, patient first attempt at a scene on Laurentz's film is particularly hilarious.  Perhaps even better is a meeting of religious leaders convened by Mannix to determine whether his big new film is acceptable to a variety of faiths.  The barbs thrown around are excellent.  The Coen brothers also take the time to show a few "clips" of fake films from Johansson and Tatum's characters, which are neat though not as entertaining as their co-stars' humor.

While there are plenty of individually entertaining elements here, Hail, Caesar! is overall a frustratingly scattershot film.  This could partly be due to my slowness in orienting to its main idea, but the "day in the life" idea just has little coherence or consistency.  It's often silly, only to abruptly turn to a seemingly much more serious scene... which turns out not to have much depth or consequence.  I guess the Coens just wanted to show a broad view of this world that intrigued them, but I think it would have been vastly improved by eliminating Johansson and Tatum's characters and focusing more on Clooney and Ehrenreich.  I was more surprised when the credits rolled here than I have been in a long time.  I thought, "wait... that's it?"

***

Hail, Caesar! is a fun film to watch, and even more interesting to review thanks to its array of strengths and weaknesses.  This is certainly a film where some people could rate it quite a bit higher, and others quite a bit lower, depending on tastes; I think a "B" is about right.  I want to emphasize the focus (or you could argue, lack of focus) of the film, though, so you know what to expect if you see it.  There's some great humor, including several truly hilarious scenes, and Clooney and Ehrenreich are really fun.  It's just a shame that it's bogged down by superfluous (and not nearly as interesting) elements, along with the odd tonal whiplash.  The appeal of the strengths, as I see them, may be enough to outweigh the weaknesses - if so, give it a try.  Otherwise, a Netflix/rental later could make this a nice change of pace entertainment for a night.





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The Revenant

Score:  **** out of ***** (A-)

Directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson
Running time:  156 minutes
Rated R

Long Story Short:  The Revenant is a wilderness revenge tale, director Inarritu's follow-up to his Best Picture-winning Birdman.  DiCaprio drives the action in an extraordinary physical performance in harsh conditions, allowing the audience to get a sense of his trials.  And the film is beautifully made, all shot on location by a virtuoso cinematographer.  There isn't much story or character drama to it all, but it's such an impressive visual event that it's still well worth seeing.


In the 19th century, skilled hunter and tracker Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) guides a party of fur trappers in the wild, cold frontier of the Dakotas.  While Glass hunts, the camp is attacked and overrun by a tribe of native Americans; only a handful of survivors, including Glass, his half-native son Hawk, and Captain Henry (Gleeson), escape down a river on their boat.  Glass goes against the wishes of many of the men in insisting they abandon the boat and try to get to the safety of Fort Kiowa by foot.  The captain takes his advice, but before long Glass is savagely mauled while scouting ahead.  The others stabilize and carry him, but the natives are still in pursuit and so Captain Henry offers a reward to two men to continue carrying Glass until he dies, while the others go on ahead.

Fear and personal reasons soon leads one of the men, Fitzgerald (Hardy) to betray his promise, and Glass is left for dead, even partially buried.  But the experienced, resourceful Glass is not yet ready to give up, and finds a powerful new drive in his desire for revenge.  From his grievous wounds to the bitter cold to the prowling natives, Glass faces a formidable challenge just to survive, but none of it can bend his will.

The Revenant has a small but effective cast, with familiar faces literally thrown into the wild.  Leonardo DiCaprio is the lead as Hugh Glass, and his performance is deserving of the Oscar he has been nominated for.  It is a physically arduous role, as the film was shot entirely on location; while it may have helped DiCaprio capture the grueling nature of his predicament, it was surely quite difficult.  There isn't much character depth here (more on this later), but the sheer relentlessness and drive evident in his performance is very impressive.  Tom Hardy is the "villain" Fitzgerald, who leaves Glass behind.  This type of role seems to suit Hardy quite well (The Dark Knight Rises) and he is easy to root against, as well as quite menacing in his fierce individualism.  But he is also the worst culprit in an overall trend - it's difficult to understand what he is saying, especially early on.  You thought his Bane was hard to make out?  This was much harder for me.  There are some supporting roles, most recognizably Domhnall Gleeson as the trapper Captain, but none particularly stand out.

The Revenant, a wilderness revenge tale inspired by true events, has both some great strengths as well as weaker elements that hold it back.  The filmmaking itself - the very images on screen - is outstanding, which is particularly rewarding within the setting of a story like this.  It is beautiful from the very first frames, of simple dark, running water through a forest, continuing through the use of only natural light and so on.  The camera work is very intimate, almost always right up close to the characters (particularly Leo's Glass) which pulls the audience into the experience.  It's not surprising the quality, considering it's cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who also did the stunning work on Children of Men, Gravity, and Inarritu's Birdman.  The action is inventively done and exciting, such as the native American attacks which provide a sense of chaos.  And of course, the mauling scene with incredibly realistic CGI beast, so real that I kind of felt bad for it when Glass finally manages to off it.  As pure scene-to-scene imagery and interest go, The Revenant is a superbly made film.

However, The Revenant is not particularly engaging on just about any other terms.  The story is a simple one, and depends on the audience sympathizing with either Glass' "background" attachment to the deceased mother of his half-native son, and/or rooting for Glass to get revenge on Fitzgerald.  I didn't think either one was effective.  The wife-son element seemed generic to me and yet distracting at times to the better parts of the film; and there's so much focus on Glass just surviving (quite understandably) that revenge seems like an afterthought.  The film is also just too long, even if it is visually interesting throughout.  Watching Glass survive in the wilderness is the strength of the film... but even that starts to lose its impact over time.

***

Thanks to the strength of the filmmaking, The Revenant is a very good film, a nice way to start the year in film for 2016.  Along with Leo's impressive physical performance, it's probably deserving of its Oscar nominations.  Quite simply, I'm not sure I can think of a more visually-engaging and -dazzling film in recent years, and following Glass' journey provides a sense of both the exciting and the grinding nature of his struggle.  But with very little behind that, to me it is an impressive technical accomplishment more than a great film.  It would be a big mistake, in my opinion, if this won Best Picture over Spotlight or The Big Short; even co-star Hardy's other nominee, Mad Max, is a more well-rounded film.  Still, if you can stomach some intense violence (or at least turn away when it comes up), then The Revenant is certainly worth seeing, especially on the big screen.




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