Tale of American, Southern Working Class as Spit On by a London Elitist

Rating: 6/10 (9 April 2018)

Problems:
1) Contrary to what director McDonagh says in a DVD extra, Dixon (Rockwell) is far from sympathetic, until the end, after he's burned and beaten. He is, rather, a brutish, drunken cretin (and, as such, a source of broad, low humor).
2) It's impossible to believe he wasn't charged and jailed for his crimes against Red Welby (Jones) and his receptionist.
3) Willoughby (Harrelson) is also only marginally sympathetic. He is too often a pig, especially in how he talks to his small daughters (which, for some reason, is supposed to be funny). His belief in Dixon is unfounded and unrealistic.
4) His letters, read in posthumous voice-over, underline the "moral" of this story and are thus artifice. This is telling, not showing. The story itself should have shown this.
5) Black humor at times jars against serious content.
6) The film crew is visible in the background on the upstairs landing when Dixon is leaving the sign office. This is inexcusably shoddy and amateurish. The scene should have been reshot.
7) More shoddy amateurishness: Anne (Cornish), Willoughby's wife, looses her southern accent for her native Australian one and, to boot, is too young and pretty for the ugly, bald, middle-aged Harrelson.
8) No sign could have been pasted on the badly burned billboards.
9) Dixon unrealistically ignores a fire raging some feet from him, ignores the heat and light, as he reads Willoughby's letter.

10) The timeless theme of love vs. hate, anger vs. peace, is attractive, yes, but not fully, not satisfyingly developed. The movie unravels a bit around the edges. For example, Welby and James (Dinklage) are patently used to represent love and peace, and are thus more artifice. Life is never that simple. Movie is not quite a full glass, but, rather, Â¼ empty.
PS. Once again, the South and American working class are incompletely understood and depicted by an elitist outsider, here a Londoner. This is a substitute, not the real thing, like Eric Clapton miming American blues.
PPS. Telling detail: Welby reading Flannery O'Conner's A Good Man is Hard to Find is a snobbish, elitist reference, tacked on but not integral to the film.