Chris Evans Performed A Villain In This Star-Studded 2025 Crime Comedy Streaming On Netflix – SlashFilm – The Imperial Wire Insider

Chris Evans performed a charismatic cult chief in 2025’s “Honey Do not!” which was unfairly ignored upon its preliminary launch. Fortunately, we will now stream the film over on Netflix and never solely uncover certainly one of Evans’ greatest latest performances, however a enjoyable, attractive, violent neo-noir. 

Since he hung up his defend and left Captain America behind,  Evans has struggled to search out his place. “The Grey Man,” “Ghosted,” and “Pink One” weren’t precisely triumphs, in spite of everything. Nonetheless, Evans’ contributions to 2025’s “Materialists” reminded us of his expertise and irrepressible attraction, which is unfortunately but to lead to a significant hit exterior of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I have been rooting for Evans ever since his 2014 directorial debut, “Earlier than We Go,” which was unfairly savaged by critics. However there is no doubt he makes it arduous typically.

“Honey Do not!” did not actually do a lot to alter that, however at the least it wasn’t “The Grey Man,” or “Ghosted,” or “Pink One.” The movie marked a departure from these generic streaming efforts for Evans, who performed a slimy cult chief in a movie that was something however generic.

After parting methods together with his brother and longtime collaborator Joel Coen, Ethan Coen collaborated together with his spouse, Tricia Cooke, on a deliberate “lesbian B-movie trilogy,” to make use of the director’s phrasing. The primary of those was 2024’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” a movie noir homage with a B-movie aesthetic and the Coens’ signature dry humor. /Movie’s evaluation dubbed “Drive-Away Dolls” a tidal wave of naughty lesbian vitality, and that wave started to crest with the second within the deliberate trilogy, “Honey Do not!,” which additionally showcased Evans having what seemed to be an entire ball.

2025’s “Honey Do not!” noticed Margaret Qualley sizzle in a moody, unabashedly queer noir, which Ethan Coen directed from a screenplay he co-wrote together with his spouse Tricia Cooke. Qualley performs Honey O’Donahue, a non-public investigator in Bakersfield, California, who takes up the case of Mia Novotny, a younger lady discovered useless in a wrecked automobile. Honey’s investigation leads her to the 4-Manner Temple, a church run by Chris Evans’ Reverend Drew Devlin, a sex-obsessed cult chief who’s additionally working a drug dealing operation.

Evans is clearly having fun with himself as Devlin, whose exploitative methods and penchant for “fellowship” together with his feminine followers make for one heck of an unlikable dude. However Evans’ personal enjoyment of the function makes scenes with the cult chief completely watchable, if not downright enjoyable. The movie additionally options Aubrey Plaza as a police officer and love curiosity for Honey, alongside Charlie Day as a detective, Kristen Connolly as Honey’s older sister Heidi, and Talia Ryder as Honey’s niece Corinne. Billy Eichner additionally seems as certainly one of Honey’s shoppers who suspects his associate of infidelity. However as star-studded because the movie is, /Movie’s Invoice Bria summed it up greatest, writing, “It is Qualley who takes the reins of the movie so completely that it’d nonetheless be a pleasure to observe even when there have been nobody else in it.”

Sadly, “Honey Do not!” was considerably ignored. Regardless of being a horny, violent noir that was additionally a number of enjoyable, the film grew to become one of the underrated motion pictures of 2025 when it didn’t make a lot of an influence, critically or in any other case.

“Honey Do not!” premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant forward of a theatrical launch in August of that 12 months. It went on to gross $7.4 million on an estimated $20 million price range and obtained principally adverse opinions. Finally, the movie managed a forty five% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics seemingly unimpressed with what they noticed as a form of enjoyable however directionless neo-noir.

Helen O’Hara of Empire was fairly taken with the “vibrant characters and funky moments” however in the end discovered that they solely saved us “entertained on the street to nowhere” and that the movie was, at its core, “a shaggy-dog story with no actual level.” The Impartial’s Clarisse Loughrey had a stab at determining a “level” to “Honey Do not!,” observing that the movie appeared to be making an attempt to discover “how survivors see themselves and that loaded phrase ‘victimhood.'” Even then, nevertheless, Loughrey discovered that the film “wrestle[d] to make a lot sense out of itself and its oddball solid.” Nonetheless, the movie had its followers, with Kyle Logan of the Chicago Reader describing it as “a fast-paced crime comedy that is stuffed with laugh-out-loud scenes.”

One side critics actually weren’t upset about, nevertheless, was the performances, with a number of writers praising Margaret Qualley and Chris Evans for his or her dedicated portrayals. That is only one motive why it is value streaming this ignored effort on Netflix. In any other case, you may all the time stream “The Rip” director’s field workplace bomb with Gerard Butler as a substitute. However for individuals who’ve been craving a bit extra from Evans than forgettable streaming nonsense, “Honey Do not!” is nicely value your time.