Seriously overpraised

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2017)

The actors are superb, but the script fails in several ways. My immediate reaction, seeing the opening shots, was that this was not Missouri. I guessed it to be the southern Appalachians (where I have spent a lot of time), and so it was. The characters did not behave or speak the way real Southerners speak or behave. Martin McDonagh has written his fantasy of what he thinks Southerners are like. He got it wrong. He works in film sort of the way D. Trump works in politics--he shocks, he amuses, he appeals to our base instincts. But he doesn't tell a coherent story.
The central characters are not sympathetic, and indeed they are borderline sociopaths, including Frances McDormand's character. Sam Rockwell's ludicrous cop character would not be tolerated, even in small-town South. Viewers are left to wonder why Woody Harrelson's wife is a much younger luscious babe with a foreign accent. (Also a real Southern man, even a lout like Harrelson's character, would not use foul language in front of his two small daughters.) The period was not clear; observing the cars in the film it seemed to be the 1980s or 90s. Yet there were no computers seen in the police headquarters of the advertising company office. Yet near the end McDormand uses her cell phone. Other reviewers have noted the recurrent racism of the screenplay.
I kept wanting to get up and walk out, but stayed for a simple reason. As with any whodunnit, I wanted to find out who did it. Guess what? McDonagh never lets his audience know who did it. As author he must know, yet he keeps this information to himself.