Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

[Jake Gittes]

4 hours ago, aabattery said:

@Jake Gittes you do the words good

 

3 hours ago, filmlover said:

I'm still a fan of this movie but @Jake Gittes is king.

Shit, now I'm thinking I did this either too late or too early to get myself a most valuable poster nomination

[aabattery]

9 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

Shit, now I'm thinking I did this either too late or too early to get myself a most valuable poster nomination

 

Keep shitting on Three Billboards and you'll lock up my vote for next year.

[baumer]

Gittes......

 

 

Great essay.  I agree with almost all of it.  Well done sir!

[Blankments]

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri absolutely repulsed me. Maybe I was too tired when I was watching it, but I think it's more likely that the poor script did me in. Mildred indeed is an interesting character, mostly due to McDormand's phenomenal performance. She's the sole reason this is worth checking out, making one of the many cartoon characters in the script feel heartbreakingly real. However, a spectacular performance does not hide the fact that the rest of this film is haphazardly made. McDonagh's direction matches his mediocre script.

 

However, the biggest insult is Sam Rockwell's character, Dixon. Rockwell gives Dixon the best performance possible, but the writing for this character fundamentally misunderstands how redemption arcs work. If one is a racist cop who beats up black people in custody, helping a woman find the person who raped her daughter has absolutely nothing to do with his racism. We're told at the beginning of the movie that he's deep down a decent person, and by the end, the only that's changed is he's more motivated to do his job. He's still a racist pile of feces, but hey, he can do his job better. It's insulting that this meant to be a progressive storyline for that character when, in fact, the character remains utterly loathsome throughout the entire film.

 

There are other problems to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's not particularly funny and its tone never seems clear. However, what it does was Dixon is by far the most insulting thing about the film, and makes it a tough watch all around. Sure, technically it's alright and McDormand is fantastic, but the rest of the film is deep down ugly, and thus, hard to recommend despite smaller triumphs within it. Disappointing in the most disgusting sense. C

[Webslinger]

On 3/23/2018 at 2:45 PM, Blankments said:

If one is a racist cop who beats up black people in custody, helping a woman find the person who raped her daughter has absolutely nothing to do with his racism. We're told at the beginning of the movie that he's deep down a decent person, and by the end, the only that's changed is he's more motivated to do his job. He's still a racist pile of feces, but hey, he can do his job better. It's insulting that this meant to be a progressive storyline for that character when, in fact, the character remains utterly loathsome throughout the entire film.

That's... kinda the point? I never got the impression that Dixon's "redemption" was supposed to be progressive or imply that he had been cured of all his repulsive qualities. He just consciously stepped up and did the right thing when he thought he had spotted Angela's killer, but he still retains his worse qualities and is liable to lapse back into them at some point - especially in light of his alcoholism and the fact that he lives with a mother whose bigotry feeds into his own.

 

One of the qualities I love best about this film is how cleverly and deviously it plays with morality and absolutism. It's simultaneously optimistic about human nature - hey, shitty people can change for the better sometimes! (Dixon) - and bleakly pessimistic about how easily "good" people can go astray - hey, a well-meaning person can burn down a police station and potentially go on a road trip to murder a guy! (Mildred). It even practically tells its audience not to make black-and-white judgments about its morality by allowing the ex-husband's ditzy teenage girlfriend to act as the mouthpiece for the message that anger begets greater anger.