Awful from beginning to end

Rating: 1/10 (21 November 2017)

SPOILERS!
I hated this shockingly racist, illogical, trashy film! I am stunned that it is not being called out for the racism (hidden behind the mask of alleged liberal good-deed-doing) and violence that it condones! I have never seen a film make so many attempts at virtue signaling while at the same time exhibiting racism all over the place. Frances McDormand alleges about some torturing of "innocent black folks" and yet that storyline is never explored. Sam Rockwell (so awful in this I need to invent a new word to describe the failure) plays a racist cop but we never actually SEE any racism - there is only innuendo and excessive, unfunny use of the "n" word. Racism, if you're going to explore it intelligently with an audience, needs more than mean words and one scene where a "racist cop" get annoyed with and threatens to take in a young hipster black man for spitting in the cops direction. Sadly, that's the best example of something mildly racist actually happening in the film besides cheap talk - and it's WEAK - because frankly the cop, dumb as he is, actually has a point in that spitting towards a cop is an act of aggression - the cop didn't arrest him, he just reminded the young man that he's walking a fine line. Every black character (all in minor roles) portrayed seems to have stepped off the train from Williamsburg or Wicker Park. They are ALL hipster types with nothing of value to contribute besides cheap talk. The black people in this movie exist only to make the fake liberals look good for having "black friends" somewhere in the background. WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION - WHY is Frances McDormand the star of this film? Why not ANGELA BASSETT? Instead of casting a white actress why didn't the filmmakers decide to make this story about a Midwestern black woman who's daughter's rape and murder was ignored by the cops? That would at least be a more believable attempt to explore these themes - rather than FILTER THAT MESSAGE through a white woman. Hollywood is racist and they almost always think white liberals need to save black people. Is it about racism, or justice for the dead daughter? Neither, ultimately. As for her dead daughter, she's abandoned by the storytellers so...WHO CARES?
The violence is stupid and LOOKS FAKE! Example: that dumb kitchen scene with the boy and his dad and the knife! Embarrassingly executed - almost as embarrassing as that REALLY bad CGI DEER that is just a knockoff scene from a superior scene from THE QUEEN. ALSO --the message of anger begets anger, etc being explained to us directly from a character is cheap writing and disingenuous. There is no good message here. Also, why the making fun of the midget? Gee - that hasn't been done thousands of times! Stupid. Not funny and NOT edgy.
BASIC PLOT FAILS!
#1. They introduce a man who "MAY" be the killer Frances is kinda searching for (more time is spent kicking high school kids in the shin - by the way, why did those kids just STAND there and let her keep kicking them? Not a very realistic reaction. They would have RUN AWAY!) He MAY be the killer - and then we learn he definitely is not? And why give us this whole story about him being somewhere "SANDY" in the war? So he's a rapist soldier now instead? So WHY show him CONFESS to Frances earlier? STUPID!
#2. THE BILLBOARDS DON'T WORK! We see NO ONE drive past them EVER except for Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody. As for the news broadcast, that was again cheap writing. It doesn't show us how people react to anything related to the billboards. Woody's cancer is a cheap diversion from the fact that the billboards have no affect. By tying his cancer so directly to the plot with the billboard's "alleged fiasco" they deny the opportunity for the audience to see the townsfolk real reaction to the CONTENT of the billboards - and instead they react to Frances being mean to a dying man. This defeats the point of the billboards in terms of storytelling, so it's hard to see any real reason why or how these billboards EVER stir the pot, but the filmmakers pretend that magically they do!
# 3. When a hipster gets thrown out the window by Sam Rockwell - the new police chief sees this - and, uh, DOES NOT ARREST HIM! So, not only do the filmmakers know nothing about police, what is legal or illegal, but they have never watched a single episode of LAW AND ORDER or even JUDGE JUDY. Speaking of reactions - no one in this film has a realistic reaction to anything that happens ever. Sam Rockwell goes from nearly murdering someone, to acting goofy after getting fired, all in the same breath! It's stupid beyond belief. Then we're supposed to believe that during THE FIRE, just SECONDS AFTER reading Woody's moralistic letter (another cheap devise overused throughout), he has an instantaneous change of heart/moral epiphany and thinks immediately of saving the BURNING CASE FILE ON HIS DESK to help Frances McDormand? I could go on for hours about how awful every second of this film is...save yourselves the time. Watch "IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT" or "MISSISSIPPI BURNING".
This movie is so awful it does not even deserve to be criticized. The only reason I am is because it has gotten rave reviews from critics DESPERATELY searching for a zeitgeist film of the moment, but who haven't found a good one yet so they are propping this one up! WHY? Because it checks off all the correct virtue signaling requirements of the times. Critical thinking while viewing this film will reveal a false justification for violence, bigotry towards dwarfs and country people, and inherently racist storytelling.