3 Billboards : Les Panneaux de la vengeance

This movie I went into almost blind, but I came out of the theater with it probably being my favorite film in the last year. This film is so smart at being able to keep you at the edge of your seat from simple things that they plug into the film. Heartbreaking and tense situations in the first half of the film come back in some shape or form that leave you questioning what is going to happen. There was genuinely no predicting what the characters were going to do and how they would react to certain events. This unpredictability doesn't just apply to situations, but possibly more notable in character arcs. Without giving to much away, there is a character in this film that does everything possible for you to hate them in the first half, and by the end of the film you are rooting for said character. There's times where the characters that you cared for are becoming real and dis-likable in certain scenes, but to the point of more so being genuinely worried about how their choices will affect them.

Every actor in this film did so tremendous as well. I really can't think of an actor or actress that outshines the rest. But if I had to pick favorites, Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell were just that. But a lot of that just has to go into the writing of the characters themselves. The cinematography in this film allows the actors to take advantage of facial expression. There's a scene relatively early in the film that is mostly sitting and staring but the actors have such convincing movements and gestures, it goes to a point where you don't need dialogue to tell what they are feeling and what they are thinking about.

Really the only issue I have in this film is some scenes felt a little unnecessary. Can't give away too much without spoiling, but in a film where every character goes through in arc, there's one character that is just there to break tension and crack personally unfunny jokes. But this character did not affect my score and they were barely in the film.

I highly recommend checking this out.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a dark comedy that has an a-list cast with names like Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, and Peter Dinklage. It centers around Mildred Hayes, a woman whose daughter was raped and killed, and who believes that the local police have not done enough about it. In reaction, she erects three billboards outside of her town that send a message to the sheriff about the state of the investigation.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths, In Bruges) has outdone himself with this one. In my opinion, if this isn't one of the top Oscar contenders come awards season, then Hollywood has officially lost its mind.

Basically everything about this film works: from the acting, to the writing, to the direction. Mcdormand gives the performance of her career here, giving us humor through all the pain clearly shown on her face. Rockwell also gives his best performance here as a cop who isn't that bright and is more than a little racist.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is probably the most unpredictable film of the year, and that's coming from a year that includes films like Baby Driver and Logan. There are scenes where you think that you know where the plot is going, but then midway through it completely flips the script.

For the entire run-time of this film, I was invested. It has the perfect run-time; it ends exactly when it needs to and there is not a scene that feels out of place.

It seems like one of the hardest things to do in film nowadays is to balance comedy and drama. However, this movie does it effortlessly. Each scene has just the right amount of comedy and drama, and sometimes, despite the fact that you're laughing, it's easy to forget that jokes are being made.

Also, the message that this film gives off resonates very powerfully with you after the film finishes. It makes you see the good side in humanity, despite our flaws. No character in this film is a cliché one-dimensional shell of a person. Everybody has a reason for being there, which is more than some films recently have offered.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is easily one of the best and most enjoyable films of 2017, and it will make you laugh, cry, and think all in one sitting. There are not any clear flaws with this film that I can find, but I am still searching.

I give Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri an A+.

Frances McDormand is a grieving mother who puts up "Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri" in this 2017 black comedy directed by Martin McDonagh.

Mildred Hayes (McDormand) is disgusted that the police haven't found her daughter's rapist and killer, so she takes out billboards asking why the chief of police, Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) hasn't done anything about the case.

The billboards set off anger, violence, and revenge motifs in this small town. Things become worse when a pent-up police officer, Dixon (Sam Rockwell) becomes enraged and starts acting out.

Lots of swearing, lots of violence, and lots of laughs to be had in this film. It was strange to watch as I had just seen another film, Past Life, that focused on the subject of anger and pain, and how it can eat a person up and destroy them. This film is yet another good illustration of that, as Mildred stops at nothing to make a point.

The one-liners are amazing, and Mildred's speech to the priest who comes by to ask her to remove the billboards is hilarious. The movie is filled with strong performances and equally well-developed characters. We see all of their sides - violent, kind, vengeful, angry, sad; we finally realize they're just people driven in some cases to extremes.

Harrelson's performance is touching -- we're prepared to dislike him but his sincerity and humanity come through. As Dixon, Rockwell seems like a monster, but once he acts out, he's able to focus his energy a little better.

And then there's McDormand, a powerhouse. She's not good ol' Marge in Fargo. She's a tough woman with a broken heart who takes out her anger any way she can. It's a beautiful, multilayered performance. Highly recommended, asking the questions of where revenge and hatred can take us, and deciding when and if it stops.

Having recently won the People's Choice Awards at TIFF, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is very easy to see why it won.

Three Billboards is a dark but also funny and heart-felt story about one woman's quest to get justice for her daughter's rape and murder. After Mildred Haynes buys three billboards with words written on them accusing the town's well-liked sheriff of having not found her daughter's killer, it sets a series of events that turns the citizens and the cops against her.

The thing I can say about Three Billboards without going into spoilers is that it is wildly unpredictable. One moment you think things are going one direction as expected then it takes hard left turn that only adds to the dynamic between the characters. As the pressure within the town builds and anger is pointed towards Mildred, we see many of these characters evolve in order to deal with tragedy and grief and learn to find peace. And the movie goes through a roller-coaster of emotions. One moment you are laughing your butt off from the hilarious dialogue then you feel like someone just punched you in the gut. With every victory you think this story brings you feel like it was taken away from because of the world's unfairness and injustice. In lesser hands the mixture of dark and comedic tones would not work, but director and writer Martin McDonagh knows how to balance them to perfection.

The performances here just through the roof. Frances McDormand delivers a performance that will for sure get her into the Lead Actress awards race at the Oscars. As Mildred, McDormand just cuts loose with her performance with every line of hate, cynicism and cursing towards everyone she feels doesn't truly understand the internal pain she is going through. But McDormand does now and then show a soft side to Mildred. It shows that Mildred is just person like everyone who has her own way of dealing with the tragedy of loosing her own child. And Sam Rockwell also gives one of the best performances of his career as the flawed and very misguided cop Dixon. The character of Dixon is short-tempered, volatile, and not bright with some baggage of his own that the locals accuse him of. But Sam Rockwell brings his charm and sincerity to what could be a rather unlikable character. And in the latter half, you see Dixon go through a tremendous arc of learning to care about others rather then just being angry towards them. Other great performances that should be called out are Woody Harrelson, Peter Dinklage, John Hawk and Caleb Landry Jones.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is easily one of the best movies this year and is worth seeing once it comes out in wide releases.

There is so much pent-up rage over the handling of rape, and police behavior in general, that I think Frances McDormand's character in this film really struck a chord with people. She's on a crusade for her daughter who was raped and killed, and yet no progress has been made in the investigation. She doesn't care who she offends, she won't be intimidated into silence, and she'll stand up for herself in some violent ways. In an interesting twist, the police chief (Woody Harrelson) has pancreatic cancer, so aside from being called out on his investigation, he's dealing with that. The scene McDormand and Harrelson have in an interrogation room, and a specific moment of that is easily the film's best. Harrelson provides a voice of wisdom in the film, and the three letters he pens are also quite touching. There is humor as well, in just how boneheaded one of the policemen (Sam Rockewell) is, and the gem of a moment when Peter Dinklage, otherwise largely wasted, utters the line "Penelope said 'begets'?", in a subtle burn of the 19-year-old now dating McDormand's ex-husband.

The film started strong, but along the way started losing me. It suffers artistically from a lack of restraint, and everything seems exaggerated. The profanity. The characters, who start becoming cartoonish. The level of violence. The coincidences. It seems to me that McDonagh's writing is a real issue here. Her last words to her daughter were "I hope you get raped," really? To leave that in the script is egregiously bad, and an insult to the viewer's intelligence. The Molotov cocktails, really? The guy being in the station to begin with, and of course wearing ear buds, really? A man thrown out of a window, and no arrest, really? And on and on, until an ending which is pretty awful if you think about it. It's just tough to appreciate the message of the film or its cast in light of all this. It was entertaining to watch, but in my humble opinion, not worthy of all the acclaim.