{"id":12855,"date":"2025-08-22T13:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T17:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12855"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:30:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:30:22","slug":"honey-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/08\/22\/honey-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey Don\u2019t!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Honey Don\u2019t!<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Comedy-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong sexual content, graphic nudity, some strong violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ethan Coen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carter Burwell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ari Wegner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 22, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Lera Abova, Jacnier, Gabby Beans, Talia Ryder, Kristen Connolly, Josh Pafchek, Don Swayze, Lena Hall, Alexander Carstoiu, Kale Browne, Christian Antidormi, Billy Eichner, Kinna McInroe, Sean Dillingham, Jude Atencio, Sean Philip Glasgow, Donny Ness, Gloria Sandoval, Gregg Binkley, Sarah J. Bartholomew, Kara Petersen, Layne Lazor, Grace Lord.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I predict that Honey Don\u2019t <\/strong>will fail at the box office. No, make that promise. It has nothing to do with it being a good movie or not. I\u2019ll get more into that later. It wasn\u2019t made with mainstream audiences in mind. Most people won\u2019t get it, kind of the same thing that happened with The Big Lebowski during its initial theatrical run. It\u2019s only going to appeal to a limited number of people and even then, they\u2019re more likely to wait for it to hit streaming. Then there\u2019s the lesbian content. If you thought Ethan Coen\u2019s previous film Drive-Away Dolls went heavy on it, wait until you get a load of his second solo outing (sans brother Joel).<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m going to come right out and tell you that the plot of Honey Don\u2019t <\/strong>is a mess. It\u2019s a noirish comedy-thriller about a female private investigator looking into the death of a young woman. Honey O\u2019Donahue (Qualley, Drive-Away Dolls) knows right away that she didn\u2019t die as a result of a car accident. It\u2019s murder and Honey knows it. The victim was a potential client who had an appointment scheduled for the next day. Obviously, somebody didn\u2019t want her talking about something.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Her investigation leads her to a church run by Reverend Drew Devlin (Evans, Captain America: The First Avenger), a shady type who\u2019s anything but holy. He\u2019s a scumbag. He deals drugs (and has kinky sex with female congregation members. He orders the murder of somebody who could destroy his entire operation. That, of course, goes wrong. The constant blundering of his incompetent people is cause for concern by those he answers to (not God!), a French connection represented by attractive but deadly femme fatale Chere (Abova, Anna).<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s the basic plot of Honey Don\u2019t<\/strong>. It sounds pretty straightforward, but it\u2019s not. The narrative is all over the damn place Coen introduces several disparate plot threads, some of which go nowhere. The only one of any real importance is the sexual relationship that occurs between Honey and MG (Plaza, Emily the Criminal), a socially awkward police officer who admires the click-clack of Honey\u2019s red heels on the station\u2019s floor. I can\u2019t rightfully say it develops because it really doesn\u2019t. It just kind of happens then takes a weird turn after a couple of trysts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s plenty more going on in Honey Don\u2019t<\/strong>. A clueless doofus of a homicide detective (Day, It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) keeps hitting on Honey despite clear evidence of her sexual orientation. Honey\u2019s teenage niece Corinne (Ryder, Dumb Money) goes missing after being assaulted by her abusive jerk of a boyfriend (Carstoiu). There\u2019s a strange old man (Browne, Bloodfist IV) creeping around town. He has a connection to Honey. It\u2019s revealed then dropped completely. There\u2019s also some business about a guy (Eichner, Bros) who wants Honey to find out if his boyfriend is cheating on him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s true that Honey Don\u2019t <\/strong>is a mess with its jumbled storyline and half-baked characters. It meanders yet still manages to not fill in all the blanks. It\u2019s what one might call a shaggy-dog tale. I probably should be panning it, but I can\u2019t do that. I actually like it. It\u2019s film noir with a twisted sensibility. I\u2019d expect nothing less from a Coen working once again with cinematographer Ari Wegner (Drive-Away Dolls) who lovingly captures the dusty, sun-baked streets of Bakersfield in faded hues. The opening credits are especially clever and original.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Qualley continues to show the world why she\u2019s one of the best young actresses in the business right now. She\u2019s so versatile. She plays the cynical, hard-boiled detective to perfection with her quick wit and deadpan line deliveries. Her exchange with Evans in their scene together absolutely crackles with her adamant refusal to be swayed by his oily charms. She\u2019s got his number and isn\u2019t afraid to dial it. Plaza is also quite good as MG. I don\u2019t like to throw it around, but the term \u201cedgy\u201d definitely applies to her. The actress has a sharp edge to her. One look can cut through the most stoic BS artist. She and Qualley have some good scenes together, but the topper is when MG not so discreetly pleasures Honey while they\u2019re sitting at a bar.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Evans displays his darker side as the not-so-good reverend and primary suspect in the murder. He tries to put up a convincing front, but even a sightless person can see he\u2019s a sleaze. That\u2019s what makes his character funny. He\u2019s the poster child for self-delusion. Abova is alluring as the femme fatale. I wish she had a bigger role in the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll say this for Honey Don\u2019t<\/strong>. It definitely has sex on the brain. There is plenty of it here, gay and straight. Coen doesn\u2019t hold back either. He pushes the envelope with scenes like the threesome involving Devlin and two sex workers. It\u2019s also quite violent, much of it surprisingly graphic (e.g. a hit and run in a parking lot). Yeah, this movie exists firmly in R territory.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can see Honey Don\u2019t <\/strong>having some cult potential, especially in the LGBTQ+ community. It\u2019s fun in a very, very warped way. It\u2019s not as good as Drive-Away Dolls (which I\u2019ve seen three times now), but it has enough good points that you can forgive it its flaws.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honey Don\u2019t! (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Comedy-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong sexual content, graphic nudity, some strong violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ethan Coen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carter Burwell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ari Wegner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 22, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Lera Abova, Jacnier, Gabby Beans, Talia Ryder, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-cool-cult-flicks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Honey-Dont-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12858,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12855\/revisions\/12858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}