Back in the mid-1980s, the Coen Brothers mixed excessive over the top violence with outrageous absurd humor and amazing visual styles that many directors take several films to achieve.
And then they split following the release of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. They said it was over creative differences and Ethan wanted to focus on theater. Joel Coen made The Tragedy of MacBeth and Ethan publicly criticized his sister-in-law Frances McDormand in the Oscar-winning movie Nomadland. There never has been anything else on Page Six but the writing is on the wall as the old saying goes.
He’s now 68 and his older brother, Joel, is 71. It’s a shame Buster Scruggs might be their last rodeo as it’s now mostly remembered for a meme with James Franco. Ethan returned in 2024 solo himself with Drive-Away Dolls which was set in 1999 and had two lesbians who are secretly in love with each other taking a drive-away car from Philadelphia to Florida but are mistaken for someone else and get the wrong car.
It co-starred Margaret Qualley who returns here playing a different character, Honey O’Donohue, a private investigator in Bakersfield, Calif., who finds herself investigating a death linked to a religious cult that where the Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) is a sex maniac. And yes, Honey is a lesbian again. And I feel that Ethan is using his wife, Tricia Cooke, as a co-writer, just so he doesn’t come off as a pervert, a dirty old man obsessed with Qualley, who quite frankly is wearing out her welcome a little too quickly in Hollywood if you ask me.
When she played Ruth Ann Moorehouse, aka Pussycat, a member of the Manson Family in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, she seemed to sparkle in the huge ensemble. But following Poor Things and The Substance, she’s become the latest It Girl. But she’s really showing there’s not much there in the annoying Happy Gilmore 2.
But Honey is still a fascinating character as she walks around everywhere like she has a purpose but I couldn’t shake the notion she was still playing a lesbian stereotype. Just like Dolls, there are some hot sex scenes, between her and Aubrey Plaza as a local police officer MG Falcone. And these scenes earned the hard R rating. Yet, aside from that, there’s really no reason to watch. And just a side note to directors and actors, it’s 2026 now and showing nudity in movies isn’t as risqué as it was once considered decades ago.
This is the most incoherent movie I’ve seen since Ridley Scott’s The Counselor. And if there’s one thing I hate worse than a bad movie, it’s a bad movie that thinks it’s being intelligent by being incoherent. Even worse than that, there is a lot of overacting, especially by Evans. Charlie Day pops up every now and again in a thankless role as a police detective who is constantly trying to ask Honey out only for her to remind him she dates women. Plaza does her normal stick but she I never fully understand her character.
And the whole third act feels like a bunch of scenes from a different movie that got edited here. Ethan has said that he intends to make a third movie with Qualley. But I don’t think it’ll be the charm he is looking for.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 