'HONEY DON'T!'......YET ANOTHER HALF-ASSED COEN BROTHERS KNOCKOFF FROM A COEN BROTHER

 Honey Don't! (2025)

     Back on 9/24/24 we reviewed Ethan Coen's nutso "Drive Away Dolls", a pathetic, watered down attempt to duplicate the kind of staggeringly unique films he used to make with his brother Joel. We were so offended at the precious time we wasted watching it, we awarded it Zero stars.

       Some bad news and not-so-bad news here.......

       Ethan's back. And he's still trying to slap together diluted, raggedy imitations of the films he and his bro produced and directed ("Fargo", "Blood Simple", "Raising Arizona"), a body of work that knocked the cinema universe on its ass.

        That's the bad news. 

         The not-so-bad?  'Honey Don't!' is still another cobbled-together wobbly mess, but it's far more watchable than 'Drive Away Dolls.'  The charismatic cast almost saves it.....almost. And they're fun to watch, up to a point...... 

         And not altogether a bad concept.....a bright sunlight broad daylight noir with a snarky, sexy private eye deadpanning her way through a host of unusual suspects. 

           In bleak arid Bakersfield California, Honey O'Donahue (Margaret Qualley) intuits that the  accidental death of a prospective client was no accident. Her investigation (along with other deaths) leads her to the oily slick Rev. Drew Devlin, a phony-as-they-come evangelist and secret big time drug dealer. 

             While making her way through the story's dense impenetrable plotting, Honey searches for her rebellious runaway teen sister Corrine and finds solace and sex with policewoman MG Falcone (Audrey Plaza, at her very Audrey-ist)

           And who's the mysterious French girl zipping around on a motor scooter? Not that we care.....

            As in 'Drive Away Dolls' none of this stuff hangs together well, so don't bother looking for the exact precision of all those well remembered Coen Brothers movies.  What you're got here resembles a collection of random scenes thrown like spaghetti against a wall to see if anything sticks. 

          A few things do stick, surprisingly....Qualley's martini dry witty dialogue delivery lands well and Plaza's given a memorable moment that takes full advantage of her skill at depicting barely suppressed contempt.

          But none of this helps the film ever coalesce into a fully formed movie. It's kind of a sad thing to watch overall....... Ethan Coen stitching together these negligible little films, comprised of bits and pieces he extracted from the 'golden age' of the Coen Brothers filmography. 

           1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2), at least a far more generous rating that 'Drive Away Dolls'......so who knows, maybe there's room for improvement in Coen's future. Nowhere to go but up......