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The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: A bad movie disguised as a good movie

Updated: Mar 5, 2018

Christian Renzi




The Academy Awards are on in a few hours and I wanted to squeeze in some of my thoughts on it before they start. Here’s my hot take.


It will be criminal if The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri wins best picture of the year, especially because it would mean that it won over Lady Bird which it should absolutely not do.


My friend and coworker, Steven Galante gave his thoughts on Three Billboards in a very accurate statement, “I think the screenwriter got drunk and forgot a few scenes.” That, to me is the perfect description of the movie. It really wasn’t written well at all. It’s a bad movie disguised as a good movie. You want to like it because Frances McDormand is such a great actress and all around badass. You want to like it because Sam Rockwell is so good in it and is finally getting the recognition he deserves, but you can’t like it because it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.


Okay so here’s the basic plot. Frances McDormand’s daughter was raped and murdered and the killer was never found. She feels like the police haven’t done enough to try and find the perpetrator so she decides to put up three billboards that call out the chief of police directly asking why the killer was never found. This inevitably pisses off a lot of the police force, including Sam Rockwell who plays a dimwitted racist cop and some of the citizens in town, including McDormand’s dentist who tries to pull her teeth without novocaine, causing her to steal his drill and drill a hole in his thumb.


This premise I don’t have a problem with. If carried out the right way this movie could have had a topical take on police brutality, and racism. Unfortunately it fell flat on its face. Here’s how.


In a flashback scene McDormand is arguing with her daughter the day she ends up being killed. Right before she leaves the house she is arguing about using the car which results in McDormand basically telling her she has to walk. The daughter then says something like, “I hope I’m raped and murdered!” To which McDormand responds with something like, “I hope you are too.”


Wait...what?


Aside from that being incredibly on the nose, it’s also hard to imagine a mother saying something like that, even when they’re in a fight.


Second bad scene. Following the outrage by people who support the police a man enters the store that McDormand works at and starts harassing her about the billboards and also alludes to the fact that he may have committed the crime. Spoiler alert...he didn’t. So why did this dude just come from out of town to harass her in her own store and hint at the fact that he might be a rapist and murderer? The only explanation is that he’s insane. There literally couldn’t be any other reason.


Third scene, and this might seem a little dumb to get upset over, but the scene wasn’t even necessary in the first place. A deer approaches McDormand and she starts talking to it as if it’s her daughter. This idea is fine but the deer was CGI and it looked terrible.


But really one of the biggest reasons this movie is annoying is McDormand herself. She is incredibly unlikable and she just gets more unlikeable as the movie goes on. All she cares about is her stupid billboards. She also burns down the police station because she thought the police tried to burn down her billboards. Spoiler alert...they didn’t. She doesn’t end up going to jail for burning the station because Peter Dinklage’s character says that she was with him all night and she couldn’t possibly have been at the scene of the crime.


Wait, why is Peter Dinklage in this movie? Your guess is as good as mine.


Fourth scene. At one point Sam Rockwell’s character throws a dude out a second story window right in front of everyone. He faces no legal repercussions, EVEN THOUGH THE NEW CHIEF OF POLICE JUST WATCHED HIM DO IT. All the new chief does is ask him for his badge and gun. THAT’S IT. He literally just tried to murder a guy in front of him and nothing happens outside of him having to resign from the force.


Fifth scene. The ending. The ending is stupid and I hate it so much. So the man who harassed McDormand in the store didn’t kill her daughter. But, he may have committed that crime in another state with a girl that they don’t know. Again they have no actual evidence that he did it. So Rockwell and McDormand decide they’re going to drive to that other state and kill that guy. Then the movie ends. That’s it. It’s over. Killer never found and now they go off to kill some other random guy.


So here’s where I leave you. This movie looks like it should be awesome. But when you apply critical thinking skills and really analyze it you discover it’s a horrible mess of plot holes, cliche takes on race and overall just poor writing.


This movie is a 6/10 at best and shouldn't even be nominated for an oscar, let alone win one.

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