Movie Doubles - 'Hail Caesar' & Mortdecai'

Flabby Comedy Double

This was an underwhelming duo of films. Perhaps they indicate that the talent that brought some of these people are waning in power if not prominence.  'Hail Caesar' is lacking the in the Coen Brothers' usual biting wit; instead it wanders a lazy terrain of banter and production design wonders. It's a lot nicer to watch than to actually enjoy what is going on. That's already a bad sign. As for Johnny Depp's turn as a mincing, puncy, English aristocrat art dealer, it made you wonder if Depp had actually lost his radar back to reality.

Even so, there were things worth noting with both films so here we are. Spoiler alert as usual. I'll try not to ruin whatever cool gags there are in these films.




Star-Spangled Unfunny Comedy Is A Problem

Both of these films are short on laughs but are billed as comedy. To be  fair, 'Hail Caesar' has a couple of genuinely funny moments but they're mostly already in the several trailers this film got. The ribbing jokes about Hollywood-being-Hollywood are a bit stale at this point in time. 'Mortdecai' has moments of genuinely witty banter but it's just not a belly-laugh kind of movie - more of a  knowing chuckle at all the jabs about the English aristocratic mores. You would genuinely expect more from both films given the talent that turns up in them.

'Hail Caesar' is ostensibly built around Josh Brolin's studio exec character and George Clooney's movie star but also sports turns by Scarlet Johansson in an exquisite aquatic choreography segment, Channing Tatum in a better than expected dance routine evoking Gene Kelly; and Jonah Hill as "a person".

'Mortdecai' has Gwyneth Paltrow playing the titular character's spouse, Ewen McGregor playing a MI5 agent, Paul Bethany as Jock the man servant, Olivia Munn as an evil agent and Jeff Goldblum as her father. It's not exactly short on talent but it seems quite intent on wasting it in arbitrary plotting and   lack of urgency in the action. It's not even clear what exactly is at stake and why these characters should care.

Both films are aiming for a kind of screwball sensibility but those films died out in the 60s for a very good reason. It takes a lot of delicate balancing of tone and plot to keep varying talents consistently funny, anreven then there are people who simply don't like the omnibus approach. While neither of these films load their cast up like 'It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World' or the 1960s 'Casino Royale', they both work through their cast as guests on an elaborate joke premise. The problems of executions are in effect problems of conception. They both could have been a lot funnier.

Are These Vanity Projects?

The Coen Brothers have had a number of hits along the way this century so they can be forgiven for the odd bad one. I recall Vincent d'Onofrio visiting AFTRS in the early 90s shortly after he had worked on 'The Player' by Robert Altman (who made a habit loading up his films with many interesting actors and let them run free) and he sad he was glad to have been in a good Altman film as opposed to a bad one. Considering Altman's stature it was a surprising remark at the time, but as time wears on, the wisdom of that insight has become more apparent. Sometimes great directors make not so great films and 'Hail Caesar' would fall into that category of a not good Coen Brothers movie.

Characteristically, the bad films of good directors come about because they make films that are a little easy on the material (I'looking at you Ridley Scott!), and 'Hail Caesar' has all the qualities of a film that was lovingly made but without the critical hardness to make the material stand up for itself. It is dripping with the homage rooted in the sentiment that goes "yeah I always wanted to do bit of 'Quo Vadis' and a bit of 'An American In Paris' and a bit of  'Million Dollar Mermaid' ..." It's even understandable that one wants to get it out of one's system but you wish they dug deeper into the plot for 'Hail Caesar'. I just don't understand why they wanted to do a 1950s Western after accomplishing the great remake of 'True Grit'.

Equally, 'Mortdecai' is perplexing because it gives us a seeming picaresque with absolutely no dig. There really isn't anything thrilling about Mortdecai the character, nor does all the talk of artworks being stolen culminate into an exciting or funny art heist. It spends an awful lot of screen time chewing through dialogue that is a loose knock-off of Noel Coward plays. It's even weirder because the three main characters are played by Deep, Paltrow and McGregor - none of whom speak like that in real life. It's an interesting display but it kills any tension as it highlights how 'acted' the whole thing is. our demands for the modicum realism makes this so obsolete before it begins.

'Mortdecai' unfortunately has the most in common with another ill-fated vanity project 'Hudson Hawk'. Right down to the subject matter of high art, hidden codes, art theft and the black market, the strange ambitions of billionaires and the strong-arming of state agents. 'Hudson Hawk' - universally reviled by critics as it is - is a witty film. 'Mortdecai' is witty in parts but nowhere near exciting or as absurd. It falls flat because it doesn't follow through on its promise.

Look you know me, I love screwball comedies and 'Hudson Hawk' but even then both these pics were really, underwhelming.

Where Was Caesar Going Anyway?

Josh Brolin is a tremendous talent. He plays the younger version of the Tommy Lee Jones character in MIB III, with perfect delivery. That doesn't mean he makes a great comedy leading man. The deadpan seriousness of everything he does isn't really all that funny given the material around him. You wait around forever for 'Hail Caesar' to deliver on its trailer's promise of belly laughs.

The subplot involving Brolin's character Eddy Mannix getting approached by a headhunter from Lockheed doesn't do too much for the story. It adds a tiny bit of distraction to the proceedings and a window into his married life, but because the story goes nowhere, it doesn't exactly add to the laughs or the tension. Not enough happens to Eddy in this story - a lot else happens in his work environment - and so he himself is neither challenged nor humiliated by events. That's not a good backbone for a comedy. Eddy most certainly is not a victim of circumstance; he's more of a lucky beneficiary enjoying exactly what he's doing, so the subplot about his career anxiety is on the whole shallow and boring.

Channing Tatum's turn as the dancer-actor who defects to the Soviet Union is largely without dialogue or significant input into the development of the story. Rather, he is revealed as having been instrumental in the plot assembled by the writers who are put out by the Hollywood system's disdain for writers. The Coen brothers covered this a lot better in 'Barton Fink'. Equally, George Clooney's turn as movie star Baird Whitlock is a little boring. He doesn't quite plumb the character depth of his facetious comedy figures like Everett in 'O Brother Where Art Thou'. The opportunities for genuine comedy were plentiful. For some reason the Coen Brothers opted not to pursue any of them.

Johnny Depp In The Sargasso

The last few films I've watched with Johnny Depp have been less than stellar turns. 'Mortdecai' adds on to a run of ordinary films with Depp putting on weird manners. 'Transcendence' and 'Black Mass' weren't exactly great films while 'The Lone Ranger' and 'Dark Shadows' were showcases for Depp playing oddballs. He hasn't exactly knocked one out of the park in a while. Heck, he's even playing Donald Trump in a satire of Donald Trump's book 'The Art Of The Deal'.

He's also getting to be one of those actors whereby you know you're going to get a heavily mannered character of one description or another, and nothing resembling normative realism. While this has been his calling card, it's sort of trying that every time you sit down to watch a film with Johnny Depp in it, there he is making everything look unreal. It's getting to the point where we ask whether he can provide anything of internal depth that doesn't depend on the extrinsic, elaborate procession of costumes and makeup.

Of course this is a minor quibble next to his co-star...

Gwyneth Paltrow Please Pick Up Your Game

Back int he late 1990s, Gwyneth Paltrow seemed to be everywhere. She was all of a sudden the acting "it" girl and dominated the box office. She was so over-exposed that David Stratton once complained that he'd seen quite well enough of her. The run eventually culminated in her edging out Cate Blanchett for an Oscar gong, playing Lady Viola in 'Shakespeare in Love'. It was tour de force performance that still looks remarkable nearly 20years later. Since then she became Mrs. Chris Martin and had kids, had that 'conscious uncoupling', as well as started Goop.com, becoming eminently un-actorly and more of a celebrity curio in the process.

Indeed, she has become the laughable curator of consumerism herself, pimping for products and services as diverse as facial treatment bowls to vagina steamers. If anything, this film would have had more laughs going into it had Paltrow played the daffy art dealer based on her own experience of 'curating' things, with Depp playing the sensible spouse who goes about figuring what's really going on.

Instead of doing good work, we've seen her playing Pepper Potts in the 'Iron Man' movies, but in most part she's been absent. Maybe this is how she wants it, now that she's won an Oscar and she's climbed that mountain - what more could she possibly want from the world actin? It just seems like a colossal waste of talent when one looks back at the actress that did 'Shakespeare in Love' and 'Great Expectations' and 'Se7en' and 'Sliding Doors'. Now she plays second bananas that anybody else might have done well enough.

It all just seems a colossal waste of talent, as if a mid-career Ken Griffey Jr. decided what he really wanted to do was quit hitting home runs and become a travel agent or a makeup salesperson.