Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival September 10,2017
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
Mildred Hayes lost her daughter nearly a year ago. She was raped and murdered. The killer hasn’t been found and Mildred is angry because she feels the police haven’t done much to find him. Mildred rents three billboards close to her house and has them say, “Raped while dying”, “Still no arrests?” and “How, come, Chief Willoughby?”. That upsets a lot of people in town.
Blaine: Writer and director Martin McDonagh wanted to write a movie with a strong female lead. In 2000, Martin McDonagh was on a bus going through the States and he saw these billboards and the words that were on them showed something terrible and angry and it was a message for the cops. He thought about combining those two ideas together as one. It’s amazing that Martin McDonagh could make a film that is powerful and at the same time make it funny with funny dialog that is smart. Martin had Frances McDormand in mind while developing the script and so he wrote the part of Mildred for her. Mildred is the main protagonist of the story and Frances hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to play a character like that in her career. She did have a taste for it after doing the TV mini series, “Olive Kitteridge”. Frances shows that Mildred is a strong person who will fight back if necessary. Frances also shows that Mildred is a person who doesn’t take shit from anyone, shows that she is a woman in grief and also can be funny. Frances was able to put all those things together as one through her performance. Frances based her physical movement off of John Wayne because she is a huge John Wayne fan. She put a bandana on her head like Christopher Walken in “The Deer Hunter”.
Woody Harrelson’s character, Sheriff Bill Willoughby, is being bullied by Mildred’s billboards. Mildred feels he isn’t doing a good enough job finding the person responsible for killing her daughter, but he hasn’t had any leads and he has been trying as hard as he could. Bill’s a good man and a lovable guy around town. He’s in charge of the police department. He is also going through some health issues. He is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About half way through the movie, he commits suicide which was very unexpected and dramatic to watch. I felt so sorry for Bill after that, but at least he made his last moments meaningful by spending time with his family.
There’s a scene where Sam Rockwell’s character, Dixon, busts his way into the billboard place, beats the guy who is in charge, Red Welby, throws him out of a window and the guy lands on the hard street. Just the sound of him hitting the ground makes you go “ouch!” That was a tense scene to shoot because it was shot in one take and the actors were trying to make sure they got everything right without any screw ups. They did six takes of that scenes. It took several weeks to rehearse it because a lot was involved, a steady cam, makeup, stunts and cars. The reason why Dixon does that to Red is because he is upset over Sheriff Bill Willoughby’s suicide and he knows that Red is one of the people to blame for that after putting up those messages on the billboards.
Sam wanted people to be annoyed by his character, Dixon, but also be amused and feel sorry for him at other times. Sam Rockwell's performance is tremendous. At first he acts like someone who doesn’t take his job seriously, but as the film goes on you see more out of him. Dixon is sent to the Hospital after the Police Station gets set on fire by Mildred and then you see him in the same hospital room as Red Welby. Dixon feels terrible for what he has done to Red and apologizes. I really like that scene because of the teary look in Sam’s eyes. His face is rapped in bandages and you can only see his eyes and he shows so much drama in his eyes which is really impressive. Dixon looses his job after talking smack at the new Sheriff. Later after he gets out of the hospital he overhears a strange man having a conversation with another guy about raping someone and what he is saying sounds similar to the Angela case. He takes a beating in order to get samples of the guys DNA after scratching him.
You would think that Dixon has solved the case and put it to an end, but there’s a twist because the DNA samples don’t match and the guy wasn’t around when Angela was killed. I also thought that Dixon would have gotten his job back if he solved the case, but I guess not. Towards the end Dixon holds a shotgun and leans his head against it. I thought he would take his own life. He didn’t solve the case and he didn’t get his job back, but he doesn’t give up because he still believes there is something off about that guy.
At the end of “Three Billboards” it shows Mildred and Dixon packing up and going on a little trip to find the guy they suspect is Angela’s killer and then it cuts to black. I thought that was a weird ending. You think they would show more like Mildred and Dixon finding him and make him confess that he killed Angela by tying him up to a chair and beating him up. I’m pretty sure he is the guy even though the DNA tests say it wasn’t him, but still he acts weird. He showed up in the tourist shop that Mildred works at earlier and he acted weird then. I suspected him since then. What’s good about that ending is that it is nice to see Mildred and Dixon putting their differences behind them and work as a team.
My rating on “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is five out of five stars.
