Different and interesting at times, but distracting with its ridiculous moments

Rating: 5/10 (12 December 2017)

This probably started out as a good idea. There's something fascinating about a cantankerous. outspoken kind of woman obsessing over an awful unsolved crime, and fighting the police on doing their job.
Unfortunately, it ends up mixing the more occasional thoughtful, interesting moments with a ridiculously clichÃ©d portrayal of small- town police as redneck buffoons, absurd Saturday-morning-cartoon style logic, Tarantino-imitating dialogue (cutesy circular monologues where the speaker enjoys correcting themselves, overly witty for the character in question because what you're really hearing is a self-obsessed eager-to-impress screenwriter, a woman talking to herself via her slippers where every single line repetitively blurts 'm****rf****rs'), irritating un-pc humour (yeah we get it, rednecks endlessly throwing out 'n***er' and 'f***ot', child abuse, dwarfs, kicking girls in the crotch etc is so fearless and edgy!) and huge tonal shifts that ruin the moment before or after. An underlying message of the film (something about kindness being more curing than anger) gets compromised in a final scene which seems forced and against all character logic. A moment half- way through sends the core of the film in a different direction, where it could easily be retitled "Three Letters from Ebbing, Missouri".
I haven't felt so frustrated before by the idea of less being better. If certain absolutely-unnecessary scenes, moments, lines, quips and slurs were edited out, it would be a much more efficient and powerful film.
Its also awkward to see as a shared experience - audiences simply don't know how to react or respond to certain tonally uneven moments, so can't help but nervously laugh at anything they think is suggestive of humour (e.g. an innocent school girl getting needlessly kicked in the crotch by an adult woman). The protagonist is often entirely rude and ignorant in her attack monologues, but rather than sympathise with her mis-directed anger, audiences are more inclined towards 'go girl!' style moronic agreement. It just feels jarring. It Would be much better absorbed on the small screen.