Drive-Away Dolls (2024, Ethan Coen) (Patreon)

48/100

Looks like Ethan may have been responsible for much of what I find unfunny in certain Coen Brothers comedies, from The Ladykillers to Hail, Caesar! to (and I'm very much aware that this is my own weird thing) Lebowski's entire third act. In any case, this felt strained to me right from the ostensibly comic violence with which it garishly opens, and then kept taking swerves that aren't so much delightfully absurdist as just kinda dumb. (The briefcase's mystery contents, obviously, but also stuff like the musical-chairs lesbian-soccer-team sex party, or even just Sukie being so pissed off about the dog that she flies it to Tallahassee at her own expense.) And a lot of the gags are pretty damn moldy—we get both the contradictory smash-cut ("She won't even be there!" SMASH-CUT TO: She's there) and the ol' awkward silence underlined by loudly chirping crickets. On the plus side, Qualley excels at blithely motormouthed Southern-fried inanity, and I was enjoying the odd-couple chemistry between her and Viswanathan (to whom I gave Skandie points for Bad Education a few years ago) until the screenplay imposes an unconvincing romantic connection onto their characters. Went back and forth on the Goons, who have some classic Coen-esque exchanges but also feel a bit like reheated Buscemi + Stormare (a duo I don't love to begin with, but that's another idiosyncrasy on my part). Oh, and file "leaves two witnesses to his murders alive because he's out of bullets" under "just kinda dumb" above. Bottom line: I didn't laugh much. But put Qualley in more comedies, please.  

ANAL-RETENTIVE TITLE CORNER: You could make a case for Drive-Away Dykes as the film's true title—it seems clear that Coen and Cooke would have preferred that, given that they depict Dolls as the censored version. And I'd probably have gone with that had they not taken the joke a step further. I can't call this Drive-Away Dykes; it's either Drive-Away Dolls or Henry James' Drive-Away Dykes. Can't quite bring myself to choose the latter.