Down to it: Margaret Qualley in ‘Honey Don’t!’.
The salty presence of Margaret Qualley as an old-school, small-town private investigator is the main draw of Honey Don’t!, an enjoyable, low-key comedy noir whodunnit from Ethan Coen, flying solo without brother Joel and marking a big improvement on Drive Away Dolls, his previous effort with Qualley.
Here she plays Honey O’Donahue, a typically cynical, no-nonsense Chandleresque investigator looking into the car-crash death of a woman linked to a cultish local church run by the charismatic firebrand Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans) who loves bringing the female members of his loyal flock closer to God via sex.
En route to uncovering the mystery, Honey hooks up with local cop MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) with whom she strikes up a potent sexual relationship and upon which Coen puts a lot of emphasis. Her other main relationships are with her sister Heidi (Kristen Connolly) and niece Corinne (Talia Ryder).
The lovely opening credits sequence nicely sets the throwback visual tone of the film, all set off by Honey’s decidedly non-digital style. She refuses to have her ancient Rolodex transferred to computer and walks around with lots of change for payphones because she won’t have a mobile phone. Even her wardrobe and car are vintage, giving her a pleasing out-of-time persona. It’s hard not to warm to her.
Coen keeps the pace brisk and light, though he lays the violence on a tad thick. Evans does a great job as the Rev; Charlie Day is a delight as an exposition-giving detective who keeps hitting on Honey despite her constant reminders that she likes girls.
The film is meant to be the second of a trilogy of self-consciously B-grade jaunts with lesbians as the main characters, though the fun of Honey Don’t! is such a world away from the tedium of Drive-Away Dolls we await the closing chapter to register precisely what the overall point is.
Should, perchance, it has anything to do with championing lesbian identity and/or the erotic portrayal of same-sex passion on screen, the effort is always appreciated though it’s a little behind the clock by several decades.
THE TOXIC AVENGER **1/2 (102 minutes)
This passably fun, deliberately cheesy remake of the 1984 midnight movie gorefest proudly features a lot of practical, in-camera, over-the-top effects – yet none of it compares to the anti-star turn delivered by Kevin Bacon who gleefully chews the scenery at every opp.
Following the original film’s story fairly closely, the janitor at an environmentally apathetic factory (Peter Dinklage) is exposed to a vat of sludge that transforms him into a grotesque beast of vengeance.
There are plenty of digitally rendered blood spurts as our hero swings his lethal mop through the corrupt villains and, yeah, it is mildly fun and sufficiently funny, though why the remake was deemed necessary isn’t ever apparent.
They’ve not really reworked or updated the concept, something that is especially surprising given the story’s environmental theme about corporations dumping gunk into the landscape. It feels dated.
Another thing.
The deformed monster is physically played by Luisa Guerreiro and voiced by Dinklage.
Easily the most famous actor today with dwarfism, one can’t help but speculate whether it was ever considered to have Dinklage physically play the Avenger, and how much more interesting this otherwise humdrum, long-delayed remake would have been.
It certainly would have given the movie a touch of novelty, a quality that marked the original and which isn’t here.
Feels like a great opportunity lost.
CAUGHT STEALING *** (106 minutes) MA
Proving again that cats are nothing but trouble, an ill-tempered feline provides the plot trigger for Darren Aronofsky’s latest off-road venture into genre with this pretty nifty crime-comedy.
Taking place in 1998 New York, we are taken into the life of bartender Hank (Austin Butler) who, though he was denied a baseball career by a road accident, seems to be enjoying life.
He seems to like his job, his routine and especially Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), his beautiful, lusty girlfriend who, as if she wasn’t attractive enough, also works as a paramedic.
When his mohawked, out-of-time punk rocker neighbour Russ (Brit actor Matt Smith, almost unrecognisable) needs to go home briefly, he dumps his cat with Hank.
Things go haywire from then on as Hank is sucked into a vortex of rather violent criminal activity as thugs come searching for information and the means to finding a stash of loot. This sends Hank on what is essentially an elongated chase.
There is some well-judged situational comedy, yet Aronofsky anchors Hank’s ordeal with some pretty heavy stakes, brought about mostly by two devout Jewish men (Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Schreiber) who sport long beards, traditional garb and a range of high-powered automatic weapons.
Butler has been impressive since his role as Tex in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Elvis and the underrated TV mini-series Masters of the Air. Here he hits another homer with his grittiest performance yet.
As for Aronofsky who gave us Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother and The Whale – he also made Noah, but let’s be forgiving – his love of left turns is on full display and includes a couple of moments that’ll make you gasp.