Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh is back and he has once again come up with another original, funny, gritty and entertaining story that will grab you by the heart. The acting is absolutely superb: Woody Harrelson as the sheriff, Sam Rockwell as the sidekick cop, and the excellent main character played by Frances McDormand, who doesn't give a shit about anyone, talks like hell and still starts a war with the police. The film has a nice retro American backwoods vibe, some funny yet powerful scenes and keeps a decent pace that thankfully prevents you from getting bored. Personally, I would have liked more violence similar to Seven Psychopaths and perhaps a more escalated finale, but otherwise it's undoubtedly quality filmmaking in every respect that shouldn't be missed this year. 80% (01/07/2018)

After the problematic and scripturally completely unmanageable Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh returned in full form and followed up on the success of In Bruges. It has the same poetics and the same work with characters, and perhaps there is a bit more absurdity here. In Bruges seemed to me to be more precise, as everything fit perfectly and fell into place. This film drags a bit in places, but the entertainment is exceptional and Three Billboards will definitely be among the best films I will see this year in terms of new films. Martin McDonagh can not only entertain, but his work has a broader impact. When I compare his work to Tarantino's, he is several levels higher. Unfortunately, Tarantino has not come close to what he accomplished in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in any of his films after Jackie Brown. I don't want to be cruel, but maybe he wouldn't even achieve that if all his films were combined. Where Tarantino squanders the potential of great actors, Martin McDonagh can squeeze the best out of his colleagues. Frances McDormand is delicious, Sam Rockwell brilliantly balances on the border of parody, and both of them portray characters that fit perfectly into the idea of the American South full of uncompromising and incorrect characters distrustful of the system and always willing to take their own idea of justice into their own hands. Overall impression: 90%. (02/04/2018)

As soon as I’ve seen this film I remembered Fargo from the nineties. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are pretty similar, especially in the quality of acting performances and the American small-town atmosphere. Ebbing is a typical American hole, but a wide range of interesting characters lives there. And these characters are so well written that you are bating your breath and just desperately wonder what is going to happen to them in the following minutes. Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell have roles so powerful that it almost left me speechless. The screenwriter and director in one person, Martin McDonagh, played with their characters so much that you encounter several shocking moments which impact the course of the whole film. There is even one scene with Sam Rockwell in the lead, which immediately placed among the best scenes I’ve seen in the recent years. Overall, I have to admit, that although there is some absurdity in the story, it is still one of the best American crime films I’ve seen in the recent years. While watching it I was reminded of the older American crime movies that I love and at the same time I was assured that the American cinematography can still amaze. (01/20/2018)

Four and a half stars. Just a little more and it might have been perfect – especially with an ending that would make better use of the brilliantly sharpened conflict of dramatic motives/human fates. But we understand that, with this conclusion, it feels more “artistic” and not shoddy. And with such original and intense situations in which the characters bind themselves to each other and with such brilliant acting performances, it is still the best of all the films nominated for the 2017 Academy Award for the best picture. (02/27/2018)

I consider it an art to write and shoot a drama in which there is a hardly a scene where someone doesn’t say “bitch”, “fucker” or “cunt” (and most of characters don’t deserve a kinder form of address), in which we see a finger nail penetrated with a dental drill and which is still funny, true and touching (I think the theme of insurmountable grief is more nuanced here than in Wind River). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a remarkably variable film and Martin McDonagh’s best so far (and I really like In Bruges). ___ At moments, I found it irritating due to its theatricality (precisely timed arrivals of characters on the scene, pauses for laughter, operatic arias) and a somewhat infantile attempt at incorrectness, but the film also offers so many surprises and so many refreshing changes of tone and has such an inventive narrative structure (there are not just three billboards, but also three characters whose stories McDonagh develops and intertwines in various ways) that these shortcomings are acceptable. With the chosen composition and multiple twists, McDonagh pursues a higher goal; he doesn’t play by the rules only for the sake of not playing by the rules, and though the film is by no means a gem stylistically (only a one-shot scene with an angry Rockwell will remain in the viewer’s memory), the structure of the story abundantly compensates for that, at least in my eyes. ___ In the context of his work so far, I find it notable how McDonagh again plays with standard narrative conventions and audience expectations (you definitely should not expect a straightforward story about a flawless protagonist who overcomes a few obstacles, uncovers the cause of her suffering and finds inner peace), just less explicitly than in Seven Psychopaths, thanks to which the characters are more believable despite the absurd exaggeration of the whole world and the film also conveys something thought-provoking about our own presence and not just about fictional worlds. 90% (01/16/2018)