JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Hail, Caesar! is not one of the Coen Brothers’ masterworks, nor does it aspire to be. It’s a light and jaunty romp somewhere between Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, it alludes to Sullivan’s Travels, Preston Sturges’s brilliant comedy about filmmakers, their intentions and pretensions.

Josh Brolin stars as a “fixer” at Capitol Studios whose current duties include helping a cowboy western star (Alden Ehrenreich) transition to dramatic actor, covering up the unwanted pregnancy of an Esther Williams-like bathing beauty (a very funny Scarlett Johansson), pacifying two powerful gossip columnists both played by Tilda Swinton, and retrieving a kidnapped star (George Clooney) whose absence is holding up production of a Biblical epic called Hail, Caesar! In the course of 24 hours he crosses paths with an effete director (Ralph Fiennes is a great comic actor), a star of musicals (Is Channing Tatum our Gene Kelly? In any case, everyone is just happy to see him), and in a hilarious scene, the representatives of four major religions vetting the screenplay of the Biblical epic.

Hail, Caesar! pays tribute to the alchemy of cinema, to the way a hokey story full of cheesy lines delivered by ham actors is mysteriously transformed into an emotional truth. This is why we go to the movies.

Hail, Caesar! is now showing at Power Plant Rockwell.