Review of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) by Christoddur — 10 Dec 2017

Went to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and I am COMPLETELY baffled by the critical acclaim for this film. What am I missing here? The film is an utter mess.

The movie is about a mother who seeks to find answers to her daughter's murder by placing three billboards up that demand the local chief of police for answers. The problem there is, the billboards lead only down a country road that hardly anyone drives, so I don't understand why there's such a fuss. When the news stumbles across the billboards and makes it top story on the 6pm news, all hell breaks loose.

The film is filled with too many characters that any one character cannot be fleshed out enough to have any kind of sympathy for them. There are characters in the film, like Peter Dinklage's "James," who just appear to be convenience plot breaks and do nothing, really, to help the plot. And there are characters and situations in the film that are so ultra-violent that you wonder why there weren't arrests made (for example, one scene involves a man who throws another man out of a second floor window in broad daylight, yet he was not arrested for it).

In one scene, the billboards are set ablaze, and the lead character just pulls out this massive fire extinguisher in her car - as if everyone drives with one. In another scene, one supporting character is burned very badly and ends up in the hospital - in the exact same room as the guy whom he threw out of the window! That character, in the very next scene, ends up in a bar - wait, wasn't he just all bandaged up and in the hospital? - and just happens to be there at exactly the same time as someone whom he thinks is admitting something that could possibly end the whole case. The whole movie is just preposterous. It's also very racist, homophobic, misogynist, and ultra violent.

I also do not see how it could be considered a comedy, with heavy topics as rape, murder, suicide, revenge, and the above mentioned racism, homophobia, and misogyny.

WHY is this movie getting critical acclaim???

Is the acting good? Sure - but when isn't Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Lucas Hedges, Caleb Jones, John Hawkes, and Peter Dinklage good? It's not their faults. It's the script that is a mess - from the beginning to the end.

UGH! I really wanted to like this movie. I didn't like much of it at all. I'm giving it a generous 4/10 - I really want to know WHY critics and audiences are liking this movie. There isn't really much to redeem it.