A bit watered down and predictable

Rating: 7/10 (23 January 2018)

I love McDonagh movies. They're fresh, funny, sad and touching, and you can never predict what's gonna happen next. In Bruges is a real masterpiece. Here I was expecting the same given the amazing reviews. Unfortunately, it is a bit watered down. The jokes didn't really hit home for me. Many of them are racial jokes aimed at making the audience uncomfortable, like in Get Out, but still... And during the whole movie I felt like it was held back. Acts don't have consequences, no one dies that shouldn't die. And my initial prediction of the movies proved correct : they never catch the murderer, and once you hear about Idaho and their plan to go there, you know the movie will end right here, that there won't be a last act outside Ebbing. The performances of the actors save the movie, and a few scenes are funny. But some characters don't hit home : the son, the 19 year old bimbo, or the replacement police chief. I didn't connect with them, and I didn't have as much empathy for the mother as I had for characters in In Bruges (all of them).