Considering the fantastic cast and punchy setup, this is a bit of a toe stub for Ethan Coen in his second outing (his other being the 2022 rock-doc “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind”) since splitting in 2019 with his brother Joel from a partnership that generated some of the most revered films of the recent cinematic past – “Fargo” (1996) and “No Country for Old Men” (2007) among them. These drive-away dolls are lesbians on a road trip to hell (well, Florida) to deliver a car and visit one’s nana. The car contains wanted cargo (a MacGuffin with shades of “Repo Man” that doesn’t have the greatest of payoffs) with a bunch of shady goons in hot pursuit. The lines between the sexually liberated Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and demure bestie Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) are drawn starkly in nearly every scene; along the way Jamie brings hookups back to their various motel rooms as the bookish Marian heads to the lobby to read Henry James during playtime. It’s a buddy movie with romantic possibilities – a soccer club spin-the-bottle makeout session forces the issue. Coen and his co-writer, wife Tricia Cooke, who edited projects such as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000) and “The Big Lebowski” (1998), borrow too much from their shared canon, namely C.J. Wilson and Joey Slotnick as idiosyncratic goons (and that is literally how the are referred to in the credits) whose opposite approaches to dealing with an escalating situation feel ripped slackly from “Fargo.” Qualley, so good in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2019) and last year’s “Sanctuary,” furthers her blossoming CV with an energetic, scene-pushing presence bolstered by an affable southern twang, and Viswanathan makes for a good offset. The chemistry between the two carries the uneven mishmash as it stumbles early and struggles to regain its quirky vibe. Also in the mix, in small raucous parts, are Matt Damon as a Florida Man, Colman Domingo as the goon handler, Pedro Pascal on ice, Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart”) as Jamie’s brash law enforcement ex and Bill Camp as the car dispatcher no one listens to. At least this not-quite-fully-baked road comedy with a prize dildo set gone missing is a fast 84 minutes.
For What it's Worth 