**** outta *****

4 outta 5

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, who made the quirky, violent masterpieces Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is also really great.  It’s not quite as punch you in the teeth immediate as his previous films, this one is toned down a bit.  Well, by “toned down” some poor schmuck still gets beaten by a drunken reprobate cop and thrown out a window and there are random acts of violence against dentists.  This film is a bit ambling after reaching a natural climax, frankly it has a bit too many endings, and the characters are mostly a bunch of jerks that are hard to relate to.  But there is a deep sense of pain and loss in this film, and also a black comedy streak that makes the bitterness go down easier.  While McDonagh’s other films actually had a slight sense of hope, this is mostly dark.  But it’s excellently written and performed, and at times hilarious, so it keeps it compelling. 

Mildred (Francis McDormand) is a grieving mother who lost her daughter in a violent crime.  Her son, Robbie (Lucas Hedges), is depressed and her ex husband, Charlie (John Hawkes), ran off with a 19 year old girlfriend, Penelope (Samara Weaving).  Mildred has not heard from the police in months so she rents three billboards reminding them that her daughter’s crime is unsolved.  This enrages the local Sheriff, Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), which he doesn’t need because he’s currently dying of cancer.  It also enrages one of his deputies, Jason (Sam Rockwell) but that isn’t too hard because Jason is angry and violent about pretty much everything.  With the three billboards lighting the fuse, tensions threaten to explode. 

There is a whole lot of plot and characters here, basically broken down into three main characters, Mildred, Willoughby and Jason, and all of their respective supporting characters and subplots.  It intertwines neatly but some things get the short shrift like the town’s outcast, James (Peter Dinklage), who has a case of unrequited love for Mildred.  However, Dinklage makes the most out of it, even with simple interactions he has a sense of yearning leading to one riveting emotional breakdown.  However, it’s sort of a symptom of the movie’s plot being a tad directionless. 

The few random asides with Charlie’s 19 year old girlfriend are actually really funny as she is incredibly ditzy and Weaving adds some laughs. Hawkes as the father does some horrible stuff that makes him more of a bad guy than someone to sympathize with. Even Mildred’s son, Robbie, wallowing in grief and depression isn’t touched upon a lot, and not quite enough different from Hedges playing grief-stricken and depressed in last year’s Manchester By the Sea.  

McDormand as Mildred is really fantastic as she’s playing a very mean, very bitter person who has every right to be.  What’s interesting is that it’s hard to tell where her actions are motivated by grief or if she’s just a psychopath.  Sometimes she seems like the hero of the film and other times she’s the antagonist.  There is one scene that shows her last interaction with her daughter before she was murdered and it’s a jaw-dropper which may be the reason she’s set on seeking justice. 

Harrelson’s Sheriff Willoughby seems to be at the end of his rope dealing with not only the grieving mother who has been driven to dangerous behaviour but also his body breaking down.   Harrelson, who was so entertainingly crazy in War of the Planet of the Apes this year, here plays a regular guy.   Well, a regular guy with an extremely attractive wife (Abbie Cornish) over 20 years younger than him but that’s how most movies with recognizable stars shake out.   Even though Cornish is not in the movie much she gets a really great reaction to an unexpected thing that Harrelson does.  He’s the moral centre of the movie and what the film does with him leaves things kind of wildly disconnected for a good chunk.

Wildly disconnected is how Jason lives and Rockwell puts in a great performance of a guy who is constantly angry and potentially dangerous.  He’s so consistently hateable at the start an attempt to make him sympathetic is hard to pull off considering the nasty things he does.  To make a broad generalization, Rockwell has two main character types in films, the know-it-all cool guy like in Iron Man 2 or the put upon loser like here or Galaxy Quest. He does both of those types really well.  Jason is a sickening, racist, sadistic, drunkard but eventually does something oddly selfless.  There’s even a standard cliché scene where he has to turn in his badge and his gun and Rockwell milks it for both dramatic pathos and a few dark chuckles. 

There isn’t much of a plot to Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri because the crime has been long past.  It more about people dealing with the crime’s aftermath and how it’s slowly driving them nuts.  It is a bit disconnected and maybe a bit too overtly cynical but its good drama, and some unexpected laughs, to watch people deal with loss and rage.