John Maguire on Film: Ethan Coen’s Drive Away Dolls raises a smile, but is ultimately half-baked

Drive Away Dolls

Directed by Ethan Coen, Nationwide, 16, rating: ***

It’s been six years since the last Coen brothers film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, with the siblings subsequently putting their phenomenally successful 40-year creative partnership on indefinite hiatus without explanation.

The crime caper Drive Away Dolls, then, is a Coen brother film, being the solo directorial debut of Ethan, who shares writing duties with his wife, the film editor Tricia Cooke.

Messily capturing ...