The opening credits of Ethan Coen’s “Honey Don’t!” walk us through the derelict corners of Bakersfield, California, a small, rugged town where news spreads fast — and gossip even quicker. Cutting through the streets in a bright blue open-top Camaro is Margaret Qualley’s Honey O’Donahue, a too-cool-for-school private investigator whose work mainly comprises catching cheating partners and keeping up with small-time crooks and no-gooders. When a dead woman is found inside a car in a clearly staged accident, the resolute detective goes on a journey that will lead her to the door of a suspicious local church and an even more suspicious criminal network within. 
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Carl Perkins’ titular classic song — although the film goes for Wanda Jackson’s rendition and its rockabilly swagger – goes “let me know, honey, how you feel. Tell the truth, now, is love real?” and Qualley’s easygoing, detached player seems to believe love to be, if not entirely false, a tad futile. She goes through women like someone who knows the supply will never dry out, casually kicking them out of her bland house in the morning with the ease of a woman who has settled into a cold routine. The “Poor Things” actor once again leans on an affected accent to convey Honey’s Western smoothness, finding much pleasure in refusing the advances of the local police chief (played by an always great if slightly one-note Charlie Day) by stating that she “likes girls,” a prolonged drawl joining the r to the l almost in singsong. 
Written by Coen alongside partner Tricia Cooke — the editor behind “The Big Lebowski” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” — “Honey Don’t!” is the second instalment of their trilogy celebrating lesbian B-movies, coming on the heels of last year’s “Drive Away Dolls.” Like the film that came before, this brash, in-your-face comedy plays into genre tropes with great giddiness, but its predecessor feels much more dynamic thanks to the dynamism of the road movie format. Here, we’re stuck in this town that can only offer so much as Coen brings in and out a roster of flat supporting characters whose only job is either to set up one of Honey’s spiffy one-liners or to be brutally stabbed, shot, burned, or blunted. 
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“Drive Away Dolls” also has a key advantage over its successor, and that is Geraldine Viswanathan. The Australian actor is a walking bundle of charm whose effortless, soft charisma softens Qualley’s somewhat harsh tendency to the pantomime. In “Honey Don’t,” Qualley is matched with the equally high-energy, high-effort Aubrey Plaza, who plays the detective’s lover slash stern cop MJ. When together, the two seem to partake not in a dance but a duel, constantly trying to one-up each other with a relentless rolodex of affected mannerisms. Their relationship is guided by lust, but the chemistry isn’t quite there, resulting in a handful of sex scenes that feel overly choreographed and a climactic confrontation that fails to harness any sense of heartbreak or true betrayal.
Joining the glitzy cast is Chris Evans, who returns to his comedic roots as Reverend Drew, the head of the dodgy Four-Way Temple. The actor seems to have a bucket load of fun as this cult leader with a roaring sex addiction and a closet full of toys and harnesses. The few scenes where we get to see him lead his followers — wagging his fingers behind a pulpit nested between two gigantic pictures of himself airbrushed to the nines— are a delightful reminder of what the Marvel star can do when unconstrained by tight latex. Alas, these are few and far between, with a subplot involving a gorgeous French murderess teased but never fully prodded at, and only adding unnecessary confusion to an arc that would have worked just as well if left as a provocation on the often exploitative nature of organized religion. 
And that’s the thing, “Honey Don’t!” is not just flair over substance, a proposition that largely lends itself to the joys of the classic B-movie. It is and feels rushedly written, even if Coen and Cooke have been tinkering with it for several years. Earnest, pulpy fun at the movies is always a welcome sell. Still, it’s hard to settle into the easy rhythms of amusement when looking for answers not to the film’s central mysteries but to the nagging gaps in a story that seems carelessly scribbled together to accommodate a character that, although compelling enough, has very little to chew on. [D+] 
“Honey Don’t!” is scheduled for theatrical release on August 22, 2025, by Focus Features.
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