"Looks like we got a war on our hands."

Rating: 10/10 (8 February 2018)

With a steely resolve similar to Winston Churchill's in "Darkest Hour", Frances McDormand knocks it out of the park with her portrayal of an aggrieved mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". Before seeing the movie and not knowing what the story was about, I thought the title of the movie was trying to be a bit pretentious and quirky to draw an audience, but all you have to do is see the movie and you'll know that any title would have sufficed for this engaging work from writer and director Martin McDonagh.
But it's not only McDormand you need to see here. Woody Harrelson plays somewhat against type as a local chief of police, and his deputy, portrayed by Sam Rockwell, provide a lot to contemplate about intolerance and personal agendas in out of the way, off the beaten path, American small towns. You'll find some of filmdom's most intelligent and creative writing in the letters written by Chief Willoughby (Harrelson) revealed after his death. I have to say, when Willoughby put that gun to his head, and even though you saw it coming, his suicide was the most electrifying moment I've seen on screen since Brad Pitt's character was blown away by George Clooney in "Burn After Reading". As the viewer, all you can do is sit up and reorient yourself because it suddenly becomes a different picture. Interestingly, Frances McDormand was in that movie too.
So I'm reading some of the other reviews here and it appears that there's some feeling that the movie leans toward dark comedy. I don't know if I can go along with that because the subject matter is entirely serious and most of the characters convey themselves with an appropriate earnest demeanor. One of the things that didn't work for me was Mildred's (McDormand) ex-husband (John Hawkes), carrying on with a teenage girlfriend, but I guess it could happen. Mildred's relationship with James (Peter Dinklage) might have gone off the rails in a different kind of movie but here, things were tastefully handled. I was also troubled by the revelation that the vicious redneck who beat up on Dixon (Rockwell) was exonerated on DNA evidence, a plot point borrowed from 2003's "Memories of Murder".
But even with some of my personal negatives, I thought this was a brilliant movie, brilliantly made. I think it has a fair chance of garnering a Best Picture Oscar along with a Best Actress for Frances McDormand, although this awards season is probably the strongest in recent memory regarding the competition. It will be interesting to see, but either way, it's a picture I'd recommend anyone to watch. It could very well leave you stunned.