Late 90s and early 00s cinema wasn’t all bad, but it was responsible for a crop of particularly dismal crime flicks. Including pictures such as the now notorious Rancid Aluminium, these were painfully contrived and agonisingly ironic winks to camera, made by film-makers who watched the movies of Tarantino and the Coen brothers and figured, how hard can it be? So it’s disappointing that Ethan Coen’s solo directorial outing (his brother Joel having already ventured out alone with the sombre, stylised The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a 90s throwback that feels closer in tone and quality to his imitators than it does to the Coens’ original work, even at their most flippant and featherlight.
An enthusiastically trashy lesbian road movie that Coen co-wrote and collaborated on extensively with his wife, Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls stars Margaret Qualley as free spirit Jamie, and Geraldine Viswanathan as her uptight friend Marian. The pair embark on a spontaneous road trip in a Dodge Aries that needs to be delivered to Tallahassee. But there’s something unsavoury hidden in the vehicle, and a couple of inept criminals on their tail. The film has a boisterous energy, but it’s puerile, phoney and frequently rather cringe.
