From Oscar-winning writer-director Ethan Coen comes his take on a modern noir detective thriller, “Honey Don’t!” When private investigator, Honey O’Donahue, played by Margaret Qualley, looks into a mysterious car crash, she unknowingly gets caught up in a crime ring centered around the town’s church. While the film has lively performances, the story is as dead as the victims our protagonist investigates.
“Honey Don’t!’s” grueling, roughly 90-minute runtime is only made bearable by the performances from its lead and supporting cast of characters. O’Donahue is your typical rough-around-the-edges, hard-drinking and black coffee guzzling detective. However, Qualley gives this one-note character a distinctive sense of self. She has a natural wit and charisma that absolutely shines on the screen. Qualley embodies the sharp tongue of a 1930s femme fatale but also possesses a softer edge to round out the character. Little details, such as supporting the local general store instead of making coffee herself, or her relationship with her nieces and nephews, make O’Donahue feel as if she is a real person you could run into in this desert town.
The next standout is MG Falcone, played by Aubrey Plaza. Again, the character of Falcone is your standard crooked cop, but thanks to Plaza’s acting range, she plays her with more personality than she is written with. Plaza gets too few moments to show off her unique style of dry humor, but the moments are there, and they do provide a chuckle. Likewise, during the third act twist, she is able to deliver the intensity to make her character feel like a proper threat — regardless of this being set up terribly within the plot.
Another notable face throughout the film is Charlie Day as Marty Metakawitch. In spite of his character only being a bit part, saying basically the same thing in every scene, Day is always a joy to watch on screen, no matter how much, or in this case, how little, he gets to do.
But as great as they all were, the standout performance in this otherwise bland thriller is Rev. Drew Devlin, played by Chris Evans. Despite what Quentin Tarantino has to say, Evans is a movie star. The actor possesses a spellbinding capability to make even the most manipulative pieces of work into charismatic douchebags you cannot help but root for — he can spin twine into gold if he wanted to, and Evans absolutely does with the shallow role he was given. He is effortlessly funny when he tells his followers to “not be macaroni.” Devlin’s simple interactions with his criminal clientele are the most entertaining exchanges throughout the entire film. Devlin is a bad guy, and he knows it, but he’s so charming that you can’t help but go along for the ride.
That all said, however, entertaining performances cannot carry a lackluster script. “Honey Don’t!” is artistic to a fault with the direction it takes its story, or lack thereof. Coen sets up so many Easter eggs, which are played off as a wink and nod to the audience as if to say, “Remember this for later.” Additionally, the camera work and musical cues also propagate these notions, further alluding to a false sense of narrative significance.
However, as opposed to setting up and paying off the threads and character arcs of its own story, the movie ends right when it’s about to get going. In Coen’s desperate attempt to deliver on a cliffhanger of an open ending, he forgets the most important detail in order to pull it off — having an actual ending. By the time the credits roll, audiences will be hard-pressed to point to one resolved plot thread. This does not make a film “artsy,” “unique” or “thought-provoking.” It makes it come off as an unsatisfying 90 minutes that viewers will never get back.
So even though Qualley, Plaza and Evans give dimension and personality to their bland roles and Day’s one running joke never gets old, all the on-screen charisma won’t save the behind-the-scenes issues of a script as dry as the film’s desert landscape.
1.5/5
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Featured Image Courtesy of Focus Features
