Too many barking cats! And I hoped to like the film.

Rating: 3/10 (30 January 2018)

I rarely go to the movies anymore but the film's location, the hype and Frances McDormand brought me out. I was ultimately disappointed with the experience. It seemed that the screenplay's conceit - the three billboards - was seen as such a good idea and selling point that the writer/director, Martin McDonagh, couldn't resist it even though it was beyond him to make anything coherent or believable around it. Moreover, he saw the location of small town Missouri as an opportunity to satisfy the world's base expectation of racism, violence and small-mindedness without the slightest intention or perhaps ability to explore them. McDonagh cut and pasted disparate scenes together in what was to add up to a black comedy and drama but the danger of going for art is that, when you miss, you get irksome, unentertaining, unconvincing dross. Films like "Fargo", "Pulp Fiction", "Good Fellas" and even "Apocalypse Now" are examples of how a roller coaster, collage screenplay can work but it takes skill to make it a unified satisfying whole.

What went wrong? Screenwriting. Some of the dialogue was clichÃ©d and amateurish. Many of the jokes were telegraphed and some of the emotional outpourings hollow. Characters. Whilst the "head" of the film McDormand, Harrelson and Rockwell did well, the gut of the film's cast were given nothing to work with and became pieces of cardboard. For example, how did an English rose (Yes, I know Abbie Cornish is Australian but she seems to effect a British accent) with an education in literature meet and marry a sheriff from small town Missouri? It can happen but there is no rhyme or reason for it within the context of the film. Moreover, some of the actions were uncharacteristic of the established characters. How does a mother and responsible loving father who is a chief of police leave their two little girls fishing by a lake surrounded by wilderness in order to have sex in the woods? The wife's praise of her husband's "cock" on their return home seemed gratuitous and phoney. The aftermath of making love with your dying husband was never so lacking in tenderness or affection. If you want sweetness without too much sugar in a black comedy look at the final scene in "Fargo". With a bit more imagination, McDonagh could surely have written a more touching family scene to symbolize a perfect last day for the sheriff prior to shooting himself. The suicide scene itself was apparently supposed to shock us with its suddenness but it seemed to me be just another obvious and convenient plot point. The letter of explanation by Chief of Police Willoughby for his suicide was utterly unconvincing too. And not to be too facetious or insensitive but I hope to look as well as Woody did and to be able to have sex right up to my end too! You may accuse me of being picky but, for the sake of brevity, I am only pointing out a few of the many cats that barked in this film. Smash up an advertising business, savagely beat up its editor and throw him out a window and brutally assault a female assistant but all that happens to you is you lose your job as a cop! I also found the punch in the face for the nice girl utterly gratuitous, cheap and nasty. Was it not established that Dixon was violently angry by what he did to "Red"? No restraint and definitely no imagination by the writer/director.
I could also point out the rather uninspired soundtrack and the lack of atmosphere. Nothing about the film spoke to me of a time and a place except perhaps for some of the posters in the dead girl's room (Nirvana) and the girl's punk/grunge outfit in the flashback scene. Even the original ads on the billboards from "20 years ago" looked more like the 1950's or 60's.
I often judge a film by the strength of my impulse to see it again. Good ones get even better the second or third times around. Nothing would convince me to believe that I would find "Three Billboards" any more or less interesting or entertaining than it was today for me. If this is a classic, I will not be venturing to the movies very much more in future