Hail Caesar! trailer: The Coens ask you to lend them your ears

The first trailer of Hail Caesar! the new comedy by the Coen Brothers starring George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill is out, and it’s brilliant!

Universal Pictures has released the first trailer of the hugely anticipated new Coen Brothers movie Hail Caesar!

Et tu George Clooney. (Universal Pictures)

Josh Brolin stars as Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood ‘fixer’ working on the year’s ‘prestige picture’ Hail Caesar starring Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). But things get very problematic when Mannix receives an anonymous typewritten note informing him that Whitlock has been kidnapped and his job is to ‘gather a hundred thousand dollars and await instructions’ if he wants his movie star back. The note is signed The Future.

Watch the trailer here

Hail Caesar looks like the perfect return to the kind of movies the Coens used to make, stuff like The Big Lebowski and even Burn After Reading. There is trademark Coen Brothers humour to be enjoyed here, and also a surprisingly large amount of old-fashioned Hollywood slapstick.

Scarlett Johansson as a classy dame in Hail Caesar! (Universal Pictures)

The cast they’ve rounded up is, to use a tired cliché, stellar. Every performer looks to be actually performing. The Coens tend to bring that out in their cast. There are lavish costumes, Hollywood intrigue and grand period sets all wrapped around in a mystery-farce.

Channing Tatum the sailor man in Hail Caesar! (Universal Pictures)

Joining the Coens in their buffoonery are Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes, Frances McDormand, Jonah Hill, Alden Ehrenreich and Channing Tatum. Hail Caesar! opens on February 5, 2016.