12 Movies From 2016 That Were Unfairly Hated
6. Hail, Caesar!
The Coen Brothers are an acquired taste at the best of times, but Hail, Caesar! had even self-confessed Coen fans expressing their dislike for the film, some calling it flat, humourless and the worse film of their career. This isn’t exactly anything new however: The Coen Brothers’ varied career has always been marked by heady heights and notable lows. Films like No Country for Old Men and their True Grit remake were both critically acclaimed and crowd-pleasers, while movies like The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers didn’t resonate with critics or audiences.
Similarly, the Coen Brothers have a tendency to alternate between darker, drama focused movies and lighter-hearted, comedic fare – think of their violent debut Blood Simple and its follow-up crime caper Raising Arizona, for example. Hot on the heels of the critically acclaimed Inside Llewelyn Davis, a comedy albeit a very dark and bleak one, Hail, Caesar! seems at first to follow this pattern. But if moviegoers were expecting a more straightforward and perhaps less demanding comedic film along the lines of The Big Lebowski with Hail, Caesar! they were wrong.
It’s been said that Hail, Caesar! is a movie for real movie buffs and it’s true that a bit of background knowledge about the studio system of Golden Age Hollywood makes it a more enjoyable watch. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing to ask of audiences, however, and if we’ve come to expect anything from the Coen Brothers’ varied oeuvre it’s that we should expect the unexpected.