[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s movie and TV reviews by Mike Peros looks at Honey Don’t!, The Thursday Murder Club, The Toxic Avenger: Unrated.
Honey Don’t!
Honey Don’t! from director Ethan Coen (who co-wrote the script with Tricia Cooke) is another of the films that answers the question, is a film from one Coen Brother better than a film from two Coen Bros.? And the answer is no. This might not be a complete surprise—unless you haven’t been overly fond of the Coen Brothers, and you loved Drive-Away Dolls, the previous Coen/Cooke collaboration. It’s neo-noirish, with a dusty and desolate California setting (there are comments on the paucity of trees) and a very good Margaret Qualley (also of Drive-Away Dolls) as a dogged private detective (with a conscience) who investigates after a proposed client winds up dead in a suspicious car accident. This, along with a visit from someone (Billy Eichner) who suspects his boyfriend of cheating, Honey’s budding (and very sexual) relationship with Aubrey Plaza’s tightly wound police officer, and the presence of a shady minister played by Chris Evans (OK, he’s more than shady but you’ll find this out right away) and you’ve got the ingredients for both a mystery and potentially intriguing character study. That the movie works somewhat is due to Qualley’s understated and sardonic portrayal of Honey, a modern descendant of the detective who goes “down those dark streets” to do the right thing. She is abetted by Evans, who is entertaining if a bit over the top (very little subtlety there) and Aubrey Plaza’s interested if enigmatic cop with some secrets of her own. Yet while Honey Don’t has its share of explosive (and unexpected) violence, the film only occasionally displays the mordant wit one expects of a Coen brother (s) film. It’s entertaining enough to make one wish it were better.
More info: https://www.focusfeatures.com/honey-dont
The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club is currently on Netflix, and it’s a pretty good place for it. It’s the type of “cozy mystery” that one is apt to find on Britbox and Acorn (full disclosure—I’m a big fan of these kinds of films and series—the British do them so well—particularly on the small screen). It has a quartet of fine actors (Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie) as residents of a posh retirement home (the kind you would want to be in—if you could afford it) who are given to meeting and discussing cold cases. Little do they know that the cold case they’re working on dovetails with the current machinations of the shifty retirement home co-owners (David Tennant and Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and their plans to sell the property—and potentially deprive the residents of their homes. As written by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote (from Richard Esman’s novel) and directed by Chris Columbus, The Thursday Murder Club hits most of the right notes as its intrepid group (spoiler alert) solves the mystery, saves their home, all the while dealing gracefully with aging, their own mortality and the needs of their declining loved ones (Jonathan Pryce is particularly good as Mirren’s husband). Is this an exceptional film? Not really, but it is made with wit, intelligence, compassion…and I wouldn’t mind seeing another one.
More info: https://www.netflix.com/title/81751137
The Toxic Avenger: Unrated
Back in the 1980s, I was a fan of Troma’s Toxic Avenger films and The Class of Nuke’em High (which introduced Tromie, the Nuclear Rodent, a character whom I had the privilege to play at an early San Diego Comic-Con). So, while I can’t be completely objective about The Toxic Avenger: Unrated, I’ll still be happy to recommend it, especially since writer/director Macon Blair revives that ol’ 1980’s seedy, seamy energy (and gore and humor) while adding a rather touching father/son relationship—and a socially relevant plotline containing the abuses of the health industry. Peter Dinklage is the hapless main character, an employee of Kevin Bacon’s (gloriously, unrepentantly sleazy) CEO of a health firm that harms more than it helps—Dinklage also has a son, a thankless janitorial job, and a terminal condition. This all changes when he is ultimately shot and dropped into a vat of ooze, which helps (after a period of bitterness) to transform him into the Toxic Avenger (Luisa Guerrero in the “suit,” but voiced by Dinklage). Toxie’s challenges and triumphs are treated with humor, wit, and a good deal of bloodletting (cartoonish but still rampant). I laughed, I cheered, I got a little misty—you may feel the same. See it on the big screen.
More info: https://toxicavenger.com/
– Mike Peros
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Published by University Press of Mississippi