Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" deserves a review as complex and long as its title, for which I don't really have the time... It's the third movie by Martin McDonagh after "In Bruges" and "Seven Psychopats", and what we have here is directly comparable with the previous. Still, if in the first we had a dark comedy with a dramatic ending, in the second the proportions were somehow equal, here the drama is much more present. You still get the same traces of dark humor, but the movie is much more harsh and credible despite many critics that I heard on the fact that there are parts of script which don't make sense. The story: A woman from a small town in Missouri, whose daughter is raped and murdered, decides after something like 8 months during which the local police didn't get any track to "counterattack" with a protest displayed on 3 billboards. The immediate result is the public dismay on her nerve of accusing the local sheriff of not doing his job in a context where the guy's sick with cancer and close to dying. Starting from this, the issue escalates, or to quote the movie: "All this anger, man, it just begets greater anger.".

The script, as weird as it might look in some places, is typical for McDonagh and excellently built reusing an "unknown author" motive seen from different angles, and typically coming as a surprise element. It's either revealing of something you don't know (spoilers: who paid for the second month of billboards, who burnt the first boards, or even who is the author of the murder) or revealing something you know but to an unknowingly character (other spoilers: who burnt the police station, or again... who's the killer). What else to say: Sam Rockwell, who for me seems to play pretty much the same part everywhere, here does the best of his career - and the part of the "ultra politically correct" critic who's blaming the movie for glorifying in the ending a racist person, is as stupid as the idea of "politically correct" criticism for an artistic product - especially given the context where we have a clear idea and message of "people can change". The camera work is not exceptional but there are some frames where you can remark a sort of finesse (an example: the whole throwing out the window scene). The score brings a "Coen Brothers" feeling, which comes naturally being written by Carter Burwell who's typically also working with them.

It's probably the most powerful movie as impact/sent message which I've seen in this "Oscar" season, despite or maybe actually because the comic approach on top of the drama part. Besides the above mentioned, maybe the very essence you're left with is the unpredictable human surprise factor = you can expect something bad from somebody good or vice versa, otherwise said, with isolated exceptions, there's not much white or black in this life, but many and diverse shades of grey.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

PS - extra big spoilers ahead: Some night when I couldn't sleep I made the mistake to look over a reddit thread on this movie, and as condescending it may sound it confirmed me again that the average IQ of the American public is somewhere... let's better not say. So, normally I'm not doing this, but in this situation I sort of feel obliged to explain some so-called stupid details in the script (leaving aside the fact that in a dark comedy you should not expect something 100% believable, but well, for the purists...): 1) how the hell can you have such a big extinguisher in your car with you? well... after your child is set on fire, maybe you do; 2) how stupid is that the local police doesn't investigate who burned their building? who says they don't? the woman had an alibi and she's temporarily spared, it's enough to skip this part in the movie; 3) BIG spoiler - the real killer issue: the movie doesn't have an ending/two people leave to kill some falsely assumed murderer/etc., etc. - I say that the movie has a perfect eding, but well, that's my own personal take on it - a) first of all the killer is the assumed one, despite negating the DNA evidence and his presence at that time in the country, it still all seems like a cover-up story - if you're paying attention there are at least three elements in the final dialogue between Dixon and the new local sheriff: the latter starts by saying to the first that he did a good job investigating in the context of him being fired and even if immediately after he denies the result; it's repeated for several times that "the commanding officer" offered a cover/alibi and more details are classified, apparently making the suspect untouchable; finally the one who leaves the badge on the desk is Dixon disappointed of the whole thing, not the sheriff who seems actually willing to offer him a chance of returning to work and b) even so, the ending is somehow apparently open, the two left to get their own justice not being 100% certain of what's next - the "shades of grey" ;) ...