<\/p>\n
\u201cHoney Don\u2019t!\u201d opens with a two-minute long title sequence. At first, it\u2019s charming: We get a gorgeous mural of the three main characters painted on the side of a building. The shot then progresses into a series of faux-vintage<\/a> shots of mid-20th-century Americana, the film crew\u2019s names cleverly rotoscoped over various street signs or writings on ratty buildings. It\u2019s clearly meant to embody the aesthetics of the movie \u2014 a tongue-in-cheek spin on a Hollywood editing clich\u00e9. And it\u2019s fun \u2014\u00a0until a good 30 seconds later, when you\u2019re still<\/em> seeing names, and you begin to wonder if you somehow blacked out and skipped ahead to the end credits without knowing.<\/p>\n The title sequence alone establishes the pattern for the rest of the movie. \u201cHoney Don\u2019t!\u201d is light-hearted, unconventional and satirical, but also incredibly full of itself. Director Ethan Coen is known<\/a> for his work on critically-acclaimed films like \u201cFargo\u201d and \u201cNo Country for Old Men\u201d and their signature dark humor. However, this film seems to concern itself more with aesthetics than substance. As a self-proclaimed enthusiast for campy movies, I was ready to settle down and watch \u201cHoney Don\u2019t!\u201d with few expectations of what was to come, yet I still managed to come out disappointed and dissatisfied with the movie\u2019s discombobulation.<\/p>\n Set in 2025, \u201cHoney Don\u2019t!\u201d is a neo-noir detective drama revolving around Honey O\u2019Donahue (Margaret Qualley, \u201cThe Substance\u201d), a wisecracking, gun-wielding private investigator not unlike the Hardboiled Detective<\/a> archetype. Right from the get-go, the film wastes no time telling the audience of Qualley\u2019s beauty. Within a few minutes, we see her stepping into a crime scene with a red sundress, red heels and red lipstick, receiving a sleazy remark from a police detective. She draws the eyes of every person who walks into the room, man and woman, but doesn\u2019t seem to care for any except those of her police detective contact, MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza, \u201cMy Old Ass\u201d).<\/p>\n Coen sets up a simple enough hook, with all of the right ingredients to make for a gender-subversive and popcorn-worthy detective cop film. The movie begins to lose its steam, however, when the actual plot is introduced. Much like any detective drama, one overarching homicide case drives the main plot of \u201cHoney Don\u2019t!\u201d The death of Honey\u2019s prospective client sets her on the trail of Reverend Drew (Chris Evans, \u201cMaterialists\u201d), the leader of the Four-Way Temple, a group that disguises its drug-trafficking ring as a religious congregation. Along the way, we unravel a thread of missing persons and murder cases connected to each of Honey\u2019s subsequent clients.<\/p>\n