Joel Coen

Illustrates the Coens' problem of ballooning fussiness and shrinking effect.

The most fascinating element of the film is its formal linking of its multiple, no-nonsense protagonists.

Sour candy...redeemed by its humor and its clever construction, harkening back to the relatively optimistic crime comedy Fargo.

The Coen Brothers have always loved to go far, a tactic they don't forgo in Fargo.

It's the whole proud, embarrassing sociopolitical, cultural heap of American history—and the American Century in particular—in two fleet, funny hours.

Even with its mock-pretentious parallelism to The Odyssey...O Brother, Where Art Thou? refuses to take itself seriously, which is both its principal failing and its charm.

In a way, the amusing, preposterous Hail, Caesar!, for all its arch postmodernism, becomes what it pastiches, resembling the kind of '50s film we can now watch and admire for a kind of cultural reflection without exactly considering it a success.

Simpleness and crime have consistently fascinated the pair, who may as well be praying at the temple of Atë...the Coens preach a healthy respect for the randomness and chaos that ensues from our desires.