Drive-Away Dolls

Sometimes, you just need a sub-90-minute, screwball comedy/crime caper to blow the cobwebs off.

Drive-Away Dolls is the latest example, following in a long and great lineage of short and sweet firecracker movies surely designed to catch eyes on streaming services for groups looking for a quick hit.

This is in the top league of such fare with a cracking cast littered with starry cameos, a fresh, funny, sharp and original queer spin on the formula and an actual Coen brother (Ethan working with his wife Tricia Cooke rather than Joel) doing the directing.

It’s, therefore, a bit of a Coen-lite film which would scan as pastiche if it wasn’t all so whipcrack tight and fast-paced. There’s a mysterious suitcase which winds up in the wrong hands, a couple of heavies tracking it for reasons that get all the way to the very top.

It could seem ‘seen this all before’ until you find out what’s in the case (which I can assure you, you won’t guess) and realise that the whole thing is in itself one big wisecracking joke.

It’s, therefore, extremely easy to like. It’s funny, it’s entertaining and it’s visual flourishes and tangents reveal it’s heavyweight credentials. Sure, there’s no great unravelling of an ending and it doesn’t fall in line with some of the Coen greats but as a quick watch and an evolution of a standard formula, it’s a delight.

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