Honey Don't!

I went into HONEY DON'T looking for a Coen Brother movie. While one kept trying to breakout, this laugh and sex filled study on lust eventually disappoints.

The cast is fantastic.

Margaret Qualley (The Substance) is perfectly cast as small town Private Investigator Honey O'Donahue. All legs, sass and brooding humor, Qualley creates a fascinating character with the DNA of Katherine Hepburn's comedic roles blended with the contempt and decisive actions of Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan.

Every word of dialogue spoken by Honey is pure Coen brothers, but only one brother has come to play this time. Ethan Coen is again paired with his wife Tricia Cooke, creating a second entry in their comedy action series featuring Lesbian protagonists primed for action, that started with last year's "Drive Away Dolls", also starring Qualley.

They're apparently defining a new niche, or trying to, based on the dismal box office results.

Audiences may not be showing up, but EVERY member of this cast sure does.

Aubrey Plaza is ferocious as cop MJ Falcone, the guard of that classic police station evidence room that looks the same in every movie. Every time Qualley's high heels and short skirt walk down the hallway for information, Plaza's Falcone comes to attention.

Chris Evans is absolutely hilarious as Reverend Drew Devlin, the leader of a sex cult barely disguised as a religious group. His baptism appears to be wild sex in the backroom of the strip mall church. I laughed out loud every time one of his henchmen, oh I mean deacons, walked into his room without knocking, in the middle of a wild sex act. Evans is having a hell of a good time here, banging parishioners and killing anyone that gets in his way with equal abandon. His facial expressions and line deliveries are Coen nirvana. Check out the portrait on the right side of the pulpit below. Huge laugh in the theater.

Charlie Day steals every scene he's in as the Chief of Police in this dusty, forgotten, damn near dead California town. He never stops flirting with the gorgeous Honey, always just laughing when she reminds him "I like girls". Day finds ten ways to say "You always say that!" in response and every one of them lands.

As a character study, the film is loaded with bizarre, funny or extreme characters that could populate any Coen brothers film. It's the mystery part of the film that seems tacked on, with a major plot twist reveal near the end that feels both desperate and disappointing.

Violent moments are explosive and gory, reminding me that Ethan's first film was a FAR superior murder mystery with clever characters called "Blood Simple". It's a bit sad that that first film, 41 years ago, is so much better than this one. Maybe it's the alchemy of Joel and Ethan together that has created so many incredible films over the decades.

Here, partnered with his wife Tricia, Ethan spins off into uncontrolled side stories and so many graphic sex scenes that it feels like they're trying to recreate the unbridled sexuality of the gritty films of the 1970's. There are moments where they're nearly successful in creating a raw Peckinpah-like scene, but then you're snapped back into the comedy in jolting fashion.

Three people walked out of our already sparse crowd by the third graphic sex scene. The puritans would never have survived the seventies.

There are some great scenes, some hilarious and fascinating moments to be sure.

Some of the best come early, especially the visually innovative main titles set to Carter Burwell's score and the perfect theme song, "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" by Brittany Howard. The combination created high expectations that Qualley and Evans flawlessly deliver on.

Too bad the film around them seems so scattered and in a hurry to go, ultimately, nowhere.

HONEY DON'T gets a C+.

If the film was as great as its trailer, this would be a Coen classic.