If 2015’s Trumbo is the coin’s tail side, then The Coen Brother’s Hail Caesar! is its head. The two films are surprisingly similar, yet so very different. Both films are set in Old Hollywood around the 1950s. Trumbo is a biopic starring an A-list actor (Bryan Cranston) as its title character—containing a large cast of smaller named actors, all “realistically” portraying real-life people. The film gives a sympathetic portrayal towards the US communist party, depicting Dalton Trumbo as a loyal American communist who is unfairly blacklisted from creating films. Trumbo features light comedy sprinkled around a saccharine drama that gets far too melodramatic and clichéd for its own good.
Hail Caesar! (the exclamation mark being omitted from this point onward), on the flip side, features an all-star, A-list cast in an entertaining black comedy—sprinkled with bits of seriousness regarding its main character: a Hollywood-scandal “fixer” played by Josh Brolin. The film features a thoughtful, albeit comical look at Old Hollywood: its cast playing satirized versions of real life people, in addition to portraying Communist screenwriters as loyalists to Mother Russia, seeking revenge against their Capitalist perpetrators. Hail Caesar’s lighthearted, unpredictable and humorously charming nature makes for a far more enjoyable experience than Trumbo’s trope-infested sappiness.
I praise Hail Caesar for its easygoing construction: having multiple character subplots loosely connected to its protagonist’s dilemma. The character arcs go as briefly as they’re introduced, sometimes even concluding off-screen. And yet, it’s the subplots where Hail Caesar shines with rich comedy gold. There are two comedy scenes that immediately come to mind. The first scene is between film star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich, now with a far more charming/tolerable accent than in Beautiful Creatures) and European director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes)—a scene that was excessively promoted in virtually every Hail Caesar trailer, yet is given hilarious new life when viewed in full context. The second scene is between Brolin’s character, a priest, a rabbi, a pastor, and a minister discussing whether the Hail Caesar movie (the one being made in-film—which amusingly enough, tells a similar story to the recent biblical drama Risen) appropriately portrays Jesus. The fast-paced quarreling between the four religious figures over Jesus’ nature is absolute comedy genius; my favorite joke is when the minister focuses more on Hail Caesar's critical flaws rather than Christ’s portrayal, “I thought the chariot scene was fakey. How is he going to jump from one chariot to the other, going full speed?”
Nothing in the film is taken too seriously, which allows the satirizing (in particular, the blacklisted Communists) to be taken with a grain of salt. The film’s most surprising element is how unexpectedly sweet it can be underneath its black comedy: creating poignant chemistry between several characters, as well as concluding Brolin’s character plot on an upbeat note (though there is a hint of sad irony to it). Hail Caesar is enjoyably fun, easygoing, and has some of the best comedy scenes in the past year. While not one of the Brothers’ greatest films, Hail Caesar certainly tops Trumbo in its portrayal of Old Hollywood.