Honey Don’t (dir. Ethan Coen)

By: Adam Freed

The monochromatic aridity of Bakersfield, California marks the investigative hunting ground of Honey O’Donahue, the titular private investigator in Ethan Coen’s, modern noir Honey Don’t. Like its sepia-toned backdrop, there is very little about Coen’s film that burns itself into memory.  Sure, there are recognizable faces, most notably Margaret Qualley (The Substance, Kinds of Kindness), whose swelling celebrity is owed in part to the challenging nature of the roles she has accepted, and to the laudable diversity of films she has willingly added to her filmography.  Qualley is joined by Chris Evans (The Materialists, Captain America: The First Avenger), who as sexually deviant Reverend Drew Devlin, does very little to compound the value of the film by way of intrigue. The particle accelerator of Ethan Coen’s dusty crime caper is police department subordinate MG Falcone, aptly embodied by Aubrey Plaza (My Old Ass, Emily the Criminal), who when placed in the path of Qualley’s Honey, becomes a welcome addition to the loosely interesting desert mystery.

Coen (Fargo, No Country for Old Men), is too renowned a filmmaker, especially as one half of an esteemed partnership with his older brother Joel, to make a film guilty of such an unforgivable slew of cinematic misdemeanors.  Honey’s story begins as she investigates a mysterious death of what appears to be a single car rollover.  Between her sleuth's intuition and her unexplained distrust for the aptitude of law enforcement, Honey knows there is more to the story than vehicular malfeasance.  The cardinal sin that Honey Don’t commits is that the totality of its presentation never equals the sum of its parts. Yes, there is mystery, although never enough to earn its audience is begging for answers. Coen also chooses to employ  a surprising amount of sex and nudity in a film that never approaches feeling remotely sexy.  Likewise, the script is intentionally left ripe for intermittent humor, yet the only real laughs come via the addition of  Charlie Day (Horrible Bosses, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) who plays Marty, a one-note, lonely detective prone to syphoning a few chuckles with his trademark soprano delivery and moronically lovable charm.  The final nail in the coffin of Honey Don’t is it leans into its graphic violence, without ever donning the cloak of dangerousness. Honey Don’t could’ve been an appetizingly sexy and savage noir yet comes across like a sheep and wolf’s clothing.  Due credit should be given for a production design that allows for a modern film to feel as if it is a period specific piece from the dawn of the 1970s. Qualley, Plaza and Evans look undeniably great in costume, yet are left holding the bag for a script that leaves them all dressed up with nowhere interesting to go.

Target score 4/10 - Ethan Coen’s legendary run as a filmmaker has earned him the right to create just about anything he wants.  Yet in the shadow of his mammoth filmography, Honey Don’t cowers as an underwhelming disappointment.  Despite its futile attempt to use sex, violence and nudity to spice up its mediocre plot line, Honey Don’t is about as forgettable as films come.