Release date – 5th September 2025, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 29 minutes, Director – Ethan Coen
Private detective Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) finds herself investigating a possible murder which could link to a shady church, particularly its leader (Chris Evans).
Throughout Honey, Don’t! I had to constantly remind myself that what I was watching was meant to be a B-movie. Not because of any action spectacle of blockbuster elements, but more in the hope that it would perhaps excuse the trudge that cluttered trudge that was unfolding. While last year’s Drive-Away Dolls was an amusing-enough road-trip comedy the second instalment in Ethan Coen and co-writer wife Tricia Cooke’s lesbian B-movie trilogy, Honey, Don’t!, is simply a bad film.
Much of it comes down to the screenplay. As Margaret Qualley’s private detective Honey O’Donahue investigates a murder, initially suggested to be a car accident, with links to a local shady church – led by Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans – trying his best with very little) – where the overall vibe is televangelism without the cameras, every conversation seems to be constructed entirely with blunt, obvious dialogue. Almost everything that’s said feels as if it’s from a first draft, or maybe even notes from the first draft. The jokes don’t land, there’s little interest in the apparent mystery at hand and every single character feels like a bland, undetailed cut-out.
Despite the efforts of the cast, which also includes Aubrey Plaza as less love interest and more raunchy scene partner for Honey MG Falcone and Charlie Day as bragging homicide detective Metakawitch, the thankfully short run-time means that there’s quite a bit of cutting between perspectives. Especially when there are characters who are meant to be mysterious and working somewhat in the background, implying gang connections and outside forces around the activities in the church. While everything generally seems to be connected all the elements that seem to be playing out separately and as if telling different stories, adding to the cluttered feeling which clogs up much of the film.
Set in Bakersfield, California, there’s a feeling of a quiet, dusty town to the setting of Honey, Don’t! Apparently inspired by 40s detective flicks, and of course B-movies, there’s a feeling of a 70s or 80s setting which settles in quite a few times just down to the look and feel of things, yet suddenly someone will pull out a smartphone which reminds you that the setting is modern day, and almost takes you out of what little engagement there is left with the film. Quickly comes the point where even lines that on paper should be funny don’t get any form of response. While the film manages to pull itself back from being truly awful it never quite recovers and enters likable territory.
Instead, it remains a boring and ineffective crime comedy, lacking in the sharpness and wit that you’d perhaps hope for with a Coen brother involved (yes, that does include thinking about those scenes in Burn After Reading). Sometimes stylistically that feeling comes through with one or two of the visual elements and certain strikings of tone, but in the flickers where this is the case the screenplay creates a sudden reminder of the truly lacking nature of the film and stops from these feelings from fully coming through and creating any form of entertainment factor.
Honey, Don’t! isn’t awful or unbearable, although sometimes it threatens to near the latter, it’s simply a bad film. Filled with bland characters and a messy tangle of events there’s little humour or mystery to this crime comedy where, despite the efforts of the cast, constantly suffers from an utterly lacking script.
Just A Little Bit Random 