The latest effort from the Coen brother is an irreverent and comedic look at Hollywood in the 1950’s with the usual array of stars gathering together to intertwine numerous tales into a work of fiction but one that you are constantly cross referencing with actual movies, events and people from the era.

Josh Brolin is the centre point as Eddie Mannix a studio fixer, based on a real life character, who’s job it is to ensure that all aspects of the lot run smoothly from day to day while dealing with all manner of curve balls that a gang of primadonna film stars can muster up. His primary issue in this movie is when the studios main star Blair Whitlock, played by George Clooney, goes missing during the middle of a film shoot. A ransom note follows shortly afterwards and Mannix has to juggle the various parties around the studio lot into ensuring that nobody knows they have a kidnapped star on their hands, all the while trying to deal with his own personal issues outside of work and a lucrative new job offer which has been put on the table.

Clooney once again superbly plays an idiot character in a Coen movie, he’s attired in a Roman Centurion costume and haircut for the whole movie and cluelessly plays his role without ever realising he’s the central figure. But, aside from Brolin, stealing the show in the movie is Alden Ehrenreich as Hobie Doyle the crooner cowboy star who the film studio want transform into a star of the new era but with his Southern drawl and John Wayne like mannerisms it is never going to be a runner. Once scene in particular where Hobie is being directed by the thespian like Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) but poor Hobie can neither get his head around the confusing name or the equally confusing, to him anyway, scene he is being asked to perform, is a moment of comedy genius.

The rest of the cast come and go and while the performances are all good it felt as though they sometimes were added on to increase the movies star power rather than developing the storyline. Shot as a movie about making movies each moment whether looking at an on screen movie take or not still feels like you are watching an on screen movie take so I kept expecting the camera to pull back to show that the whole thing was one big movie set but that would be too obvious for the Coens so while not as good as some their other classics it’s as clever as you would expect, the acting is excellent as always and the script as ludicrous as ever for one of their comedy movies.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 out of 10