Drive Away Dolls ★★½

WHILE I definitely don’t begrudge the Coen brothers delivering separate projects, they still do their best work together.

Fargo, No Country for Old Men and Miller’s Crossing are genuine modern classics while the brothers’ more outright comedies are much revered.

A year or so ago Joel gave us his stylistic version of Macbeth and now Ethan and his life partner Tricia Cooke have combined for comedic thriller Drive Away Dolls.

The latter is a road movie with two women falling in love while being chased by criminals who are in pursuit of a mystery briefcase.

There are many Coen trademarks on display, including characters and situations pushed to farcical limits and noir-ish camera work, lighting and editing.

But the tone proves too uneven with the comedic elements mostly off-kilter with too many attempts to use sex scenes as button-pushers.

This is much more of an attempt by Ethan to say ‘look at me’ and ‘isn’t this outrageous’ for my liking.

I would have preferred a harder and blacker edge to the comedy if the intent was to shock over entertain.

Still, any Coen film is welcome and always interesting and the cast are uniformily good.

Watched at the cinema