Directed by:
Martin McDonaghScreenplay:
Martin McDonaghCinematography:
Ben DavisComposer:
Carter BurwellCast:
Frances McDormand, Caleb Landry Jones, Kerry Condon, Sam Rockwell, Clarke Peters, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Woody Harrelson, Abbie Cornish, Riya May Atwood (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
American dark comedy drama in which a mother becomes frustrated at the local police force's ineptitude to solve her daughter's murder. When no potential perpetrators have been identified and the investigation slowly grinds to a halt, Mildred (Frances McDormand) takes matters into her own hands to ensure that the media, local citizens and the police take her plight seriously and find her daughter's killer. (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (14)
The raw story of a woman who wanted to achieve justice despite the many sticks that people threw under her feet is a showcase of breathtaking performances (the Oscars are well deserved in this case) and a strong theme that won't leave any viewer cold. The film succeeds in convincingly evoking the atmosphere of a gritty small town where it is perfectly normal to be racist and throw people out of the window without blinking, and where justice is a scarce commodity. I may have imagined the ending a little differently, but I still give it the better of four stars.
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Martin McDonagh is back and he has once again come up with another original, funny, gritty and entertaining story that will grab you by the heart. The acting is absolutely superb: Woody Harrelson as the sheriff, Sam Rockwell as the sidekick cop, and the excellent main character played by Frances McDormand, who doesn't give a shit about anyone, talks like hell and still starts a war with the police. The film has a nice retro American backwoods vibe, some funny yet powerful scenes and keeps a decent pace that thankfully prevents you from getting bored. Personally, I would have liked more violence similar to Seven Psychopaths and perhaps a more escalated finale, but otherwise it's undoubtedly quality filmmaking in every respect that shouldn't be missed this year. 80%
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Martin McDonagh was able to write and film something great again. And that could actually end my commentary, because the less you know about the film, the more you will enjoy it. I like these beautifully unreadable stories in which something totally unexpected can happen at any moment, and I was amazed when I could watch the great Frances McDormand and, as always, the excellent and again completely different Sam Rockwell. And that’s it, I’m done.
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Four and a half stars. Just a little more and it might have been perfect – especially with an ending
that would make better use of the brilliantly sharpened conflict of dramatic motives/human fates.
But we understand that, with this conclusion, it feels more “artistic” and not shoddy. And with such
original and intense situations in which the characters bind themselves to each other and with such
brilliant acting performances, it is still the best of all the films nominated for the 2017 Academy
Award for the best picture.
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I consider it an art to write and shoot a drama in which there is a hardly a scene where someone doesn’t say “bitch”, “fucker” or “cunt” (and most of characters don’t deserve a kinder form of address), in which we see a finger nail penetrated with a dental drill and which is still funny, true and touching (I think the theme of insurmountable grief is more nuanced here than in Wind River). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a remarkably variable film and Martin McDonagh’s best so far (and I really like In Bruges). ___ At moments, I found it irritating due to its theatricality (precisely timed arrivals of characters on the scene, pauses for laughter, operatic arias) and a somewhat infantile attempt at incorrectness, but the film also offers so many surprises and so many refreshing changes of tone and has such an inventive narrative structure (there are not just three billboards, but also three characters whose stories McDonagh develops and intertwines in various ways) that these shortcomings are acceptable. With the chosen composition and multiple twists, McDonagh pursues a higher goal; he doesn’t play by the rules only for the sake of not playing by the rules, and though the film is by no means a gem stylistically (only a one-shot scene with an angry Rockwell will remain in the viewer’s memory), the structure of the story abundantly compensates for that, at least in my eyes. ___ In the context of his work so far, I find it notable how McDonagh again plays with standard narrative conventions and audience expectations (you definitely should not expect a straightforward story about a flawless protagonist who overcomes a few obstacles, uncovers the cause of her suffering and finds inner peace), just less explicitly than in Seven Psychopaths, thanks to which the characters are more believable despite the absurd exaggeration of the whole world and the film also conveys something thought-provoking about our own presence and not just about fictional worlds. 90%
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