The Agenda is Painfully Obvious

Rating: 4/10 (11 March 2018)

I enjoyed the last few minutes of this movie. Redeeming the irredeemable cop was quite a novel move, I thought. And given the entire rest of the movie followed a totally manipulative Hollywood agenda, it was the more remarkable for that. Hollywood, please, we get that all men are toxic rapists. We get that all women are strong heroes. Cops? All white supremacists. Blacks? All nobility. We GET it. Can't you just give it a rest and give us good movies? Entertainment? Sheesh.
The irony is that the likes of McDormand and Harrelson would fly over a place like Billings with a shudder of relief that they don't have live in such a place. So both their performances came over to me as totally forced.
And as to the ending... it actually made me laugh for audacity. You don't know how to untangle the web you've spun? Can't work out a resolution for the mystery? Oh, just cut the ending entirely. Let the audience think it's clever, artistic.
If this film wins Oscars then there's no hope left. 4 stars for Sam Rockwell's performance alone. He steals every scene he's in and gives us at least one intriguing storyline.