Before I give my thoughts on this movie, I have to share a funny story about my viewing experience. After me and my friend got out of the theater, we took pictures of us by the three different posters across the hallway. One of the posters said in marker, "needs Joel", in reference to the fact that this marks long time writer/director Ethan Coen's first solo directorial effort. Why do I mention this? Because I feel like me and my friend made the right choice in just judging the film on its own merits and not the fact that a legendary director made a bizarre yet enjoyable black comedy about two lesbians going on the road for the fun of it.
Now the story itself is pretty gritty from the get go, as the two friends in particular, Jamie and Marian, end up on the run after unintentionally taking a car with a briefcase that mobsters are after. While the Coen brothers have made many idiosyncratic crime capers, down to their first film Blood Simple being one, this film's content is wildly erotic, to the point where might debate if the feature is more or less an excuse to exploit sex scenes for the sake of it. Coen wrote the movie with his wife Tricia Cooke, who also served as the main editor, so one can sense a lot of their influence from bad taste cinema that was hot in the 60s and 70s. Not only is the movie foul in both language and graphic content, but the obscenity is so erratically abhorrent that there is a lot to take away in terms of reactionary value. Therefore, anyone going into this film will not be able to comprehend much of what to expect beyond the basic premise, so it's best to take the experience for what it's worth.
If anyone behind the film managed to make the most out of the rambunctious nature of it all, it would have to be the cast. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan work off well as Jamie and Marian, bouncing off carefree words and tumultuous actions with such lively vigor that you buy anything that happens to them, no matter how frustrating or emotional their misadventures may be. In addition, while a little more sardonic than legitimately intimidating, the Chief and his cronies Arliss and Flint make for genuinely unsympathetic losers thanks to the married couple style chemistry between Colman Domingo, Joey Slotnick and C. J. Wilson respectively. Beanie Feldstein is also a fun addition as Jamie's ex Sukie thanks to her explosive temper and defensive approach to her officer duties. While the visually stimulating cinematography and playful editing make the character's journey just as intense as their desires, the actors make the characters arguably more delightful than the story ever had a chance to do so.
So while Drive Away Dolls is a throughly naughty road crime caper that barely takes itself seriously, it is a breath of fresh air as far as nostalgic throwbacks to exploitative genre films go. In a day and age where audiences pretend to have grown past those genres yet still seek out torture fests for horror movies or mainstream adult comedies, this feature could be up the alleys fpr any fans left of the genre. Even if you could see this film as Ethan Coen calling it quits and not taking his status all that seriously anymore, it's still quite a crazy time indeed.
Now the story itself is pretty gritty from the get go, as the two friends in particular, Jamie and Marian, end up on the run after unintentionally taking a car with a briefcase that mobsters are after. While the Coen brothers have made many idiosyncratic crime capers, down to their first film Blood Simple being one, this film's content is wildly erotic, to the point where might debate if the feature is more or less an excuse to exploit sex scenes for the sake of it. Coen wrote the movie with his wife Tricia Cooke, who also served as the main editor, so one can sense a lot of their influence from bad taste cinema that was hot in the 60s and 70s. Not only is the movie foul in both language and graphic content, but the obscenity is so erratically abhorrent that there is a lot to take away in terms of reactionary value. Therefore, anyone going into this film will not be able to comprehend much of what to expect beyond the basic premise, so it's best to take the experience for what it's worth.
If anyone behind the film managed to make the most out of the rambunctious nature of it all, it would have to be the cast. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan work off well as Jamie and Marian, bouncing off carefree words and tumultuous actions with such lively vigor that you buy anything that happens to them, no matter how frustrating or emotional their misadventures may be. In addition, while a little more sardonic than legitimately intimidating, the Chief and his cronies Arliss and Flint make for genuinely unsympathetic losers thanks to the married couple style chemistry between Colman Domingo, Joey Slotnick and C. J. Wilson respectively. Beanie Feldstein is also a fun addition as Jamie's ex Sukie thanks to her explosive temper and defensive approach to her officer duties. While the visually stimulating cinematography and playful editing make the character's journey just as intense as their desires, the actors make the characters arguably more delightful than the story ever had a chance to do so.
So while Drive Away Dolls is a throughly naughty road crime caper that barely takes itself seriously, it is a breath of fresh air as far as nostalgic throwbacks to exploitative genre films go. In a day and age where audiences pretend to have grown past those genres yet still seek out torture fests for horror movies or mainstream adult comedies, this feature could be up the alleys fpr any fans left of the genre. Even if you could see this film as Ethan Coen calling it quits and not taking his status all that seriously anymore, it's still quite a crazy time indeed.