A dark comedy about small-town private investigator Honey O’Donahue, who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church.

After a successful career spanning over 30 years as co-directing brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen have spent the last few years making their own movies, and both have taken completely different directions. Joel, for his part, has so far made ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ and has the intriguing sounding ‘Jack of Spades’ currently shooting in Scotland, while Ethan has returned to the caper comedy style that has been a genre the duo explored in some of their original films. In partnership with his wife Tricia Cooke, who co-writes and co-produces, they have set out to make a ‘lesbian B-movie trilogy’, with this movie, ‘Honey Don’t!’ being the second after ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ which was released last year. If you can imagine a sexier take on the likes of ‘Raising Arizona’ you won’t be too far away, but your opinion on the quality may differ.

‘Honey Don’t!’ centres on private investigator Honey O’Donahue, played by Margaret Qualley (who also starred in ‘Drive-Away Dolls’), who is introduced to us arriving at the scene of a car crash, where she discovers the deceased driver was a potential client who had contacted her the previous day. This sets off a plot that involves incompetent cops, lesbian lovers, family dramas and a church that may be being used as a front for selling drugs. We follow Honey as she investigates the connections between a series of seemingly unrelated events, while she finds herself in bed with a police contact called MG (Aubrey Plaza), as she juggles her personal and professional lives.

The movie has no shortage of quirky supporting characters and out of the core cast, Chris Evans is especially having a ball as a sleazy reverend. Margaret Qualley is excellent and perfectly cast in the leading role, but the movie as a whole is a series of often individually comedic and slapstick moments, with a plot that is all over the place and a mystery that never really grabbed me. It’s almost as if the key components of an entertaining movie are here (strong leads, quirky cast, comedic set pieces), but there isn’t a strong enough story to hang those elements on, much as was the case with ‘Drive-Away Dolls’. It’ll be interesting to see if the planned third movie in the trilogy will be more successful.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Ethan Coen

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Kristen Connolly, Billy Eichner, Talia Ryder, Lera Abova and Charlie Day

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt30645201/