A True Dark Comedy

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2017)

From Martin McDonagh, director of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, comes Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. If you liked his other films, you'll love Three Billboards. Once again, a large cast of characters who are just just far enough out there to be funny, but grounded enough to be realistic find what should be an ordinary situation rapidly escalating out of control.
Frances McDormand stars as Mildred Hays, a grieving mother who decides the best way to encourage the police to solve her daughter's brutal murder is to put up three billboards outside town calling out the chief of police. That is enough to lite a fire under the town, quite literally, as the dying Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), his intellectually-challenged mamma's boy officer (Sam Rockwell), the town midget (Peter Dinklage), the man who owns the billboards (Caleb Landry Jones), and Mildred ex-husband (John Hawkes) all end up on a crash course towards each other. As they say "Anger just begets greater anger" and there is a lot of anger in Ebbing, Missouri.
Amazingly, a movie that is essentially nonstop chaos and overreactions manages to actually develop its characters and have them grow. None of the characters are simply caricatures, save a couple very minor roles, and they all have more depth than most movies would have given them.