YMMV / Hail, Caesar!

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Laurence Laurentz's relationship with Baird Whitlock a Casting Couch situation, as Thora claims, or a sincere Romance on the Set that had to be kept secret due to the homophobia of the time?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Movie. The overarching plot is about Baird Whitlock's kidnapping with a recurring subplot about Eddie Mannix's dilemma of staying in Hollywood or leaving to work for Lockheed, but large chunks of the film are composed of cinematic non-sequiturs that largely exist as a way for The Coen Brothers to film homages to bygone movie genres: The Western singing cowboy picture, the aquatic Busby Berkeley Number, the South Pacific-style musical, and the Sword and Sandal Epic. Whether or not viewers think this is a good thing or a crippling flaw is up for debate.
• Critical Dissonance: The Rotten Tomatoes score with critics is a solid 85%, but the movie received a mediocre 46% from casual moviegoers, as well as a C- on CinemaScore. A major reason for the divide is the insular nature of the movie; unless you're familiar with filmmaking as it exists currently and during The Golden Age of Hollywood, most of the humor and references will be lost on you. Naturally, this means that more well-versed cinephiles will get more out of the film than the general population.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Hobie Doyle, being an Adorkable cowboy actor who struggles when cast as the lead of a dramatic film, and who figures out most of the kidnapping plot and eventually rescues Baird Whitlock, even if it only involves just showing up and telling him to get in the car. The movie gave Alden Ehrenreich a real career boost as a result.
  • Engels, The Future's main mascot.
• Heartwarming Moments: Although Mannix arranges a date between Hobie and Carlotta in a cynical attempt to distract gossip columnists, the two end up thoroughly enjoying the evening and each other's company.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Hobie's subplot is eerily similar to what his actor Alden Ehrenreich would go through during the production of Solo: being cast as the lead of an extremely big budget production hoping to ride on the coattails of his recent successes (including Hail, Caesar! itself) only to find himself hopelessly out of his depth, requiring extensive coaching to bring his performance to standards.
  • The communist screenwriters explain to Baird that they dislike the studio system because it takes their scripts, uses them to create high-grossing movies, and doesn't give them a cent in return. While it's Played for Laughs (since they're clearly hypocrites), screenwriters not being fairly compensated for their work in the streaming age ended up becoming a hot-button issue in the years after the movie's release, eventually culminating in the 2023 WGA strikes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Hobie Doyle's status as a cowboy star becomes very amusing when Alden Ehrenreich later got cast as a young Han Solo — who is viewed by the fandom to be pretty much a cowboy in space.
  • Years earlier, George Clooney had made some disparaging remarks about Charlton Heston in regards to his ties to the NRA, which gives his portrayal of Baird Whitlock (who takes at least a little cue from Heston in Ben-Hur) some irony.
• Inferred Holocaust: What will happen to Capitol Pictures when word gets out about one of its stars, Burt Gurney, defecting to the Soviet Union? Not to mention the heads that'll roll when the general public hears about Hollywood being infiltrated to some degree by communist screenwriters. Then again, that could all be the type of fallout Eddie Mannix deals with on a typical day.
• One-Scene Wonder: Channing Tatum only appears to perform the "No Dames" number — about five minutes long — and has minimal screen time elsewhere. Doesn't stop him being very memorable.
• Signature Scene: Either "No Dames" or "Would that it were so simple", both far and away the most commented on scenes by critics and audiences alike.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some feel that the Random Events Plot cheapened what was a good concept and that the film could have instead had a more coherent story.

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