Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh; November 10, 2017) Movie • Page 5

Again, I'm not defending this as a good film. It was incredibly flawed and I'm unsure how any serious filmlover could look beyond a lot of huge flaws in the writing. McDonagh walks a very fine line in his films between solid, absurd, crass writing and offensive tone-deaf drivel. This had a lot of both, more the latter. It was more watchable than Seven Psychopaths. The scene with the priest was a pretty low point, as were the numerous uses of "c***", although I did like her son's "It was just a gag" line.

 

I didn't find his arc redemptive either, but the director did. That is the whole point of the suicide note and his decision to investigate the crime after being fired.

The Oscars thing is circular. These films are made at least partially to make awards, and marketing and Oscar lobbyists spend months telling people how great these movies are. The Oscars promote these mediocre films and dominate much of the theater space for months, drawing money from a lot of people who rely on these awards shows to tell them what is good. Films that do not adhere to the formula end up getting shut out of the summer blockbuster season and the winter Oscar season. They need to be criticized.

 

I don't necessarily buy into that narrative with this one, but you know that I agree with you about that sentiment.

 

I think there is some fair critiques of the racist cop getting redemption without acknowledging his previous behavior. One of the glaring problems that I don’t see many people addressing is the caricature of the rural working class. Hollywood seems to have a problem connecting with people from non-coastal, flyover states.

 

Every 2-3 years there is a film like it. Some of it is the fault of McDonagh, a Brit trying to make an American film. David Gordon Green, Jeff Nichols, and Richard Linklater, among others, use their Southern heritage to make thoughtful films set in the South. However, Sean Baker is an outsider but he captured my region of the world fairly well.

 

I’m a Californian, but have a lot of family in that area. It just seems very common to portray people in an exaggerated way, especially for comedic effect.

 

I watched this over the weekend after hearing how good it was. Man, was it bad and reading through this thread made me laugh a lot so thanks guys. I am surprised by the dislike of Seven Psychopaths though, I remember liking it when I saw it but it was so long ago I don't remember much from it.

Being from Missouri, it's so funny that this movie and Ozarks on Netflix both show towns of super comically over the top redneck people. I guess that's just how Hollywood sees this state.

 

Reverse Shot released their 2 Cents today, and this line about the movie had me laughing out loud.

 

It really sucks that Woody Harrison's character offed himself since he was the only decent character or person in that town. The movie already wasn't great before then, but after that fact I think it went straight downhill.

 

I love it in movies where a character says the title of the movie. In this case when Francis McDormand went to the agency and the first thing she said was, "I wanna put up a message on Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri!"

 

so it's interesting reading this thread now. I had literally no idea what this movie was about (could never even remember what it was actually called) but I know that I saw it on a LOT of peoples end of the year lists. I heard it had oscar buzz as well so last night when my bf and I were considering a movie night, I suggested it. We went and saw it....honestly I have always said that I have low standards for movies tbh. I liked it even though the ending was unsettling to me. I understand the critiques but I guess I didn't see dixon as being redeemed at all. I can understand the viewpoint that "the director did' though. that's a fair point.
anyway I also suggested Lady Bird and The Post but he picked this one, so. I almost wish we had seen one of those, after reading this thread.

 

The movie has a lot of problems, specifically in the script department, but I'm still scratching my head over the idea that Dixon was redeemed in any sort of way at all. Doesn't make sense to me, really. Feeling bad and doing one decent thing doesn't erase everything else he had done and the ending doesn't absolve him of his past crimes or excuse the crime he and Mildred are planning to commit.

 

The whole movie is about forgiveness. There are plenty of monologues about it and the ending hammers it home when you feel McDormand and Rockwell let their anger go a little bit, far less committed to killing a guy who might have raped someone. The movie lets Sam Rockwell off the hook when he lets himself get beat up in the bar and black people stick up for him, even though he's most well known among the town, particularly it's black residents, for abusing black people in his capacity as a police officer.

 

dude does the heinous shit offscreen that never really gets dealt with, but he also beats a guy with a pistol and throws him out a window nearly to death, before beating him again on the street. but he says he’s sorry in the hospital and it’s okay, they bond over orange juice afterwards.

 

Aside from Dixon being redeemed, which in some ways he was, this movie just sucks. REALLY stupid dialogue, HUGE plot holes, just plain dumb.

 

Just didn't see that angle to it at all. Even the one good thing he does is framed as being motivated specifically as him just trying to get his job back (still a selfish prick), not because he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart. A job he lost, by the way, as punishment for his horrifically racist and criminal actions in the past. And he doesn't get the job back, either. Doesn't sound like redemption to me, like, at all. If the new chief had suddenly accepted him back into the precinct after what he did, that would've been different, but, nope, he's still a jobless selfish racist with a burned face and no allies at the end of the film, which is pretty far fall from where he started it.

Again, movie still has plenty of other issues aside from that one.

 

He lost his job for beating up the white guy in front of his new boss, not for any of the racist stuff he did. And redemption isn't a clear cut "I got my job back!". His redemption is the black characters standing up for him, his new boss saying he did good work, and Frances McDormand teaming up with him.

 

You don't see that as intentional? That he was able to get away with what he did for so long because it was abuse against people of color? I wouldn't consider the scene in the bar as the black characters standing up for him. He gets the shit kicked out of him and they say "he's a cop", that's about it. I highly doubt he is forgiven. He attempted to do good work and failed.

A person can be a horrible shit head and decide to change or stop being an asshole or let hate go away or whatever the message of this muddled movie was. It's the decision of the viewer whether or not they are "forgiven" or "redeemed". I didn't find that his actions at the end of the film redeemed him in my eyes. It's clear that not many people did. I also don't think that the film was attempting to make the character 100% redeemable.

Pat brings up the orange juice as a "bonding" moment or w/e. I view it as people recognizing the fact that he's a dumb asshole and not stooping to his level. You're a piece of shit, you were a piece of shit to me but I'm not going to retaliate. I don't think Caleb Landry Jones "forgave" Rockwell. I think he was smart enough to recognize that hurting him even more is not worth it.

The film is absolutely unclear on what sort of theme/statement it is trying to make but there's a lot in there about forgiveness vs. simply not continuing to perpetuate violence.

 

I mean, his new boss clearly was aware of his history when he arrived, and he was presented with an opportunity to fire him by witnessing the beating in person. But he still lost his job, either way. His new boss said "Good work," because it was good work, even someone like Dixon can do good work, but he doesn't get the redemption he himself was hoping for, which was getting his job back. And Mildred teaming up with him really means nothing, he didn't do anything to her that she could conceivably forgive him/redeem him for. Mildred isn't even the best person either, it seemed like she only cared about the police department's treatment of black citizens insofar as it was a rhetorical tool she could throw at them for not investigating her daughter's murder more. As for black characters standing up for him, I don't remember when that happened or what the context was so I can't speak on it. But either way, the film doesn't give Dixon the redemption he is clearly hoping for after he reads Woody's letter. And that's even if he is hoping for redemption, because honestly the only good thing he does in the film is selfishly motivated, not done because it's the right thing to do.

 

All of this but also yeah, specifically about the Caleb Landry Jones scene, I took it as more of like, he's recognizing that this irredeemable prick got what he deserved and so there was no further need to kick him while he's down. He doesn't forgive him, he looks at him as being so pathetic in that moment that he just realizes, like you said, it's not worth it.

 

Imo if we're taking the film to task for racism, it's making the racism of Rockwell's character a character quirk rather than a legitimate problem that gets addressed later in the film. Just like having Dinklage in the film mainly for the sake of jokes about his size. Or the repetitive use of "c***". McDonagh plays with serious things in a way that is completely careless and offensive. That's a flaw in a lot of his work.

He fails to realize that in 2018 the "racist grumpy cop" archetype carries much, much more weight and should be handled completely differently than the shit people could get away with back in the day. He seems incapable of tackling that subject and should have left it out of the film.

 

Also I feel like I need to reiterate that, while I thought the movie was good when I first saw it, I've since reevaluated how many problems it does have in the writing department and don't feel that way about it anymore. I just don't think this one particular thing fully checks out as a criticism, in my opinion.

 

idk. he smirked at him when he handed him the OJ in a pretty ho-hum way. that isn’t something you do because you realize you’re better than the other person and don’t want to kick them when they’re down. CLJ already knew he was a better person that Rockwell’s character. it seemed more like a “we’re good” moment.

 

No, I believe it's intentional, but a big block in this movie for me in the first place is that I honestly don't think it cares about the anonymous black victims of Rockwell's brutality at all. It pays them lip service and tries to be about race in a small town in some ways, but it doesn't feel like there's any gravity to any non-white perspectives, any non-white relationships. Even Frances McDormand's friend, after being unjustly jailed, remains offscreen the rest of the movie. McDonagh is talented and I don't hate this movie, there's some really good stuff in it and some really muddled stuff that doesn't work, even when the movie is intentionally trying to be about murky morality. But it does set up a very clear arc for Rockwell's character where he supposedly learns and grows and an audience is supposed to come around on him.

 

There's definitely a really good movie buried in this premise somewhere, something that makes some insightful commentary on race and police brutality on the one hand and police apathy/ineffectiveness on the other. Maybe instead a plot where Mildred works with the victims of Dixon's racism on her campaign against the Ebbing PD rather than going it alone to the point that we never even see any of them. I don't know.