2024, Ethan Coen (True Grit) -- download
No sir, no you don't.
That said, I just did a search for the combination of words, and it has two distinctive uses on this blog: one is the painfully repetitive reference to a time period when I considered myself a movie buff, and also a reference to those recognizable faces in movies, whose names often escape memory. Even if I don't do a tag, it might be fun to do a ReWatch series of That Guy movies. And maybe find some movies from the same time period that I should have seen, but didn't for one reason or another?
Anywayz, enough rabbit-holing.
Yeah right.
This was a weird movie, a quirky little thing that was both off-putting and very charming. But other than No Country for Old Men that pretty much describes all Coen Bros movies, no? So the same and different when lacking one Coen?
In an alleyway outside a bar, Santos (Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall) is murdered for the briefcase he has chained to his wrist, and he is beheaded in the attack. Kind of extreme. Meanwhile Sukie (Beanie Feldstein, Lady Bird) kicks girlfriend Jamie (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) out of her apartment for cheating on her, so Jamie decides to join her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan, Blockers) on a trip to Tallahassee, Florida in a drive-away rental car -- the idea that a rental car has to be driven from A to B, so you get... a reduced rate? The thing is that the car was supposed to be picked up by a representative of some shady characters, but the girls showed up instead. Something is in the trunk of the car and the shady characters want it back.
Of course, that's the bland story bit. The real Coen (brother) thing is the characters. Marian is repressed, sedate and nervous. Jamie, with her over-the-top hillbilly accent, is the opposite -- free, excitable and all about the casual sex. The girls are friends only. The gangsters are loquacious and constantly badgering each other. The rental agent is peak Coen mumbly. What's in the box ... er... trunk is hilarious and off-putting.
Don't you want to tell them?
I do want to tell you "what's in the box", and you can probably guess... half of it. You see, there is the wrist-chained briefcase and there is a head hat box. The former is key to the story, the MacGuffin everyone is chasing while the latter is just incidental. But...
Just go ahead and tell them!
OK, the case is full of dildoes! Big rubber schlongs! You see, there are these weird transition pieces in the movie, all 60s psychedelia and ... is that Miley Cyrus? Apparently she was some crazy lady who slept with emerging people of power, drugged them just enough so she could do a casting of their members. And that case of dicks has been used as currency (Santos was a collector) and blackmail evidence against the now powerful said people, including right-wing Xian Senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon, The Great Wall). The goons chasing the case are his goons and he wants his facsimile penis back before it can be revealed to the world, which would no be good for his Whitehouse run.
Of course, the girls now ... cough... empowered by the use of the senator's manhood foil his plans and reveal him to the world. And run away with the bribery money. And another copy. Marian has finally admitted she is attracted to Jamie, despite their opposite end personality spectrums, and is very forthright about her fondness for the instrument of pleasure. Jamie is willing to explore the idea of commitment -- insert joke about moving in together. There are some weird things being said here, such as, why are all the "men of power" so well endowed? Why is a realistic penis replica so attractive to a pair of lesbians? But the entire movie is sex-positive, and doesn't judge anyone, and is also sort of a commentary on the foibles of repressing who you really are.
It was OK, not as ground-breaking as the Bros used to be, but fun, and quirky, and well done.
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