Nice film, some of the best of the year

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2018)

With the constantly degrading quality of the film industry, this movie was a breath of fresh air, and it kept me interested till the end. The acting was great and the dialogues were mostly well thought.
There are a couple of unforgivable movie sins that just have to be mentioned.
You just not write a movie without an ending. Period. And speaking of endings, if you are on-your-way-to-redemption ex-cop racist, killing some rapist who is 100% not the guy you are looking for just doesn't fit the bill. What would your beloved dead boss say about that? Is this the interpretation of the message of love?
Second, you just do not go to the adds agent, ask for the price of the billboards, and after he admits they haven't been rented in 50 years, throw 5 Gs at him for 1 month. This is stupidity that diminished the main character.
Third, you just don't bring Clarke Peters in a detective movie only to have him fire some idiot. The guy caught Avon fkin Barksdale, for Christ's sake, and I am sure had we given him just a little more time, this case was going places.
Which brings me to the final unforgivable sin - making a murder/detective movie with a plot that does not involve ANY actual development in the investigation. Just left me lacking something.
I am fine when the characters in a movie look out of time. Although the movie suggested level of technology somewhere in the 80s, the cops behaved as if it was the era of "Deadwood". There were some cell phones and googling towards the end, and I assume it was intentional - an artistic jump, I guess. I can also tolerate the lack of authentic accent and the fact that the colored people looked out of place, as well as the australian? widow of Willoughby. It is the when the Russians in a movie speak to each other in broken English with bad Russian accent where I draw the line.
There is a little discrepancy in the plot worth mentioning. There is some magical force keeping the cops from destroying the billboards, while at the same time they have no problem throwing the agent out of the window and using all kinds of harassment tactics to make people remove them. And they are just fine with some lady setting their whole department on fire. I tolerate this artistic freedom as long as it does not contradict the reality of the movie.
Some not so random guy harasses Mildred and looked out of place at first. But the guy is a rapist pscycho, who most definitely heard the news, so there is still some plausibility to his actions, although it only adds a little drama.
The movie was well filmed, very watchable, and what has become one of my most important attributes of movies in recent times, lacked empty conversations of the "you just don't kill people" type. I am convinced that if you want to write a 9/10 grade film, say Cohen brothers level, you just don't have time in a 2-3 hour movie for scenes with dears in the middle of nowhere reflecting about incarnation.
There is another semi sin I decided to include here. I am unfortunately quite familiar with pancreatic cancer, and can testify that the sheriff was not even remotely close ti the final stages of the disease. And although I sympathize with his decision to end it before it gets ugly, I still feel a father would have more to say to his daughters in his final hours than "don't move out of the god damn blanket". And if you can still have decent sex with your wife... I mean, the sheriff jumped the gun a little there.