Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI           B                    

USA  Great Britain  (115 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Martin McDonagh             Official Site

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh broke onto the scene with the hilariously inventive In Bruges (2008), an absurd comic drama filled with repulsive dwarf jokes, ridiculous race humor, and a flurry of ethnic slurs, where the marvelously inventive dialogue is so brilliantly written that it serves as a catharsis for all modern ills.  His follow up Seven Psychopaths (2012), while thoroughly enjoyable, seemed to run off the rails, finding itself getting continually sidetracked.  In addition to movies, however, McDonagh has written four other Tony nominated plays, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1998), The Lonesome West (1999), The Pillowman (2005), and The Lieutenant of Irishmore (2006), where he along with older brother John Michael McDonagh, The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014), have demonstrated a niche for a scathingly incendiary, free-wheeling writing style that has all the makings of some of the best writing found anywhere in the world today.  And wherever you find writing of this caliber, unmatched, high quality performances are bound to follow.  Enter Frances McDormand, whose riveting work with the Coen brothers in Blood Simple (1984) and Fargo (1996) have elevated her into actress royalty, where this film only confirms her status as one of America’s greatest actresses.  Written with her in mind, McDormand epitomizes an actress fully inhabiting her role, always playing fiercely independent, no-nonsense characters, where in this film, she’s tough enough to stand up to any man, and then proceeds to do so throughout the film, showing uncommon fortitude, which eventually grates on those closest to her, feeling like they already have enough of a load to carry.  As Mildred Hayes, a single mother raising two high school age kids in a tiny rural setting in Missouri not far from the Ozarks (though actually shot in the mountainous hills of North Carolina), whose ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes) ran off with a lame-brained 19-year old who’s closer to a daughter than a girlfriend, making a sick statement about the maturity of the men in the vicinity, yet her biggest ordeal was losing her daughter to a brutally vicious sex crime that remains unsolved after seven months, with no possible leads in sight.  Seeing three broken-down billboards along an isolated country road exactly where the crime occurred, Mildred gets the idea of using the billboards to make a provocative statement (much like the catchy Burma Shave billboard advertisements in the days of yore), going on local TV telling the public, “My daughter Angela was murdered 7 months ago, it seems to me the police department is too busy torturing black folk to solve actual crimes.”  It is no minor coincidence that the notorious racial disturbances of Ferguson just happen to be in the same state.  And lest we forget, Missouri was a late addition to the Southern Confederacy.    

What we have in the police department is a permanent state of dysfunction, with the relatively decent Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) overseeing a bunch a derelicts, led by the hapless Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a numbskull officer with a hair-trigger temper and a reputation for crossing the line into racist mistreatment of black suspects, which is conveniently overlooked by the other members of the department.  At home, living on the outskirts of town, Dixon is a Mama’s boy, urged on by his hateful mother, Sandy Martin, always seen with a cocktail in her hand, browbeating her inept son to be more aggressively intimidating, making a statement by his very presence, but actually making others around him more nervous, as he’s a hothead, viewed as a constant embarrassment, going overboard on the most trivial matters, yet he has an endearing habit of confessing his shortcomings, even if unintentionally, and telling the exasperated truth, as if he’s always answering to his mother.  No doubt motivated by all the attention the billboards cause in town, Willoughby pays a visit to Mildred, whose initial response is classic, “The time it took you to get out here whining like a bitch, Willoughby, some other poor girl’s probably out there being butchered.”  Reporting there is no blood match in any national DNA database, Willoughby even acknowledges he’s dying of cancer, but Mildred is unsympathetic, claiming they could be doing more, as they’re hardly the picture of a dedicated and hard-working police department, especially with a goofball on the loose like Dixon.  The entire town, it seems, turns against Mildred, as their sympathies lie with Willoughby, a popular family man, but the more they try to get her to back down, the more resolute she is, knowing there is a greater chance of success in breaking the case if the event remains in the public headlines.  Mildred’s own son, however, Robbie (Lucas Hedges), is disgusted by his mother’s antics, as it’s a constant reminder of his sister’s loss, something already dominating his thoughts, where he seems to have no peace from the subject when its continually being shoved into his face.  At school, after her car windshield is egged by anonymous students unhappy with her tactics, she kicks the shit out of a few of the closest suspects, fully demonstrating how a bad ass behaves, much to Robbie’s displeasure, as that’s only adding more fuel to the fire.  When the police start arresting her friends for some trumped up charge, this only escalates the terms of engagement for Mildred, who goes on the warpath. 

While there is a prevailing sense of humor throughout, much of it surprisingly offbeat, which typifies the director’s earlier works, but this one has greater dramatic reach, mirroring a prevailing feeling that there is something flawed about our criminal justice system, as so often the wrong criminals are charged, often languishing in prison for decades for crimes they didn’t commit, while the guilty parties are never charged, including a host of white police officers that are exonerated after killing unarmed black teenagers, a customary practice that never seems to end.  Mildred’s outrage at the lack of accountability for such a heinous crime taps into a similar mood felt throughout the country where there is no appearance of justice anymore, as no one is held accountable for some of the biggest crimes, like corporate theft and the layers of lawyers and lies that protect the guilty parties from prosecution.  In Mildred’s case, it’s like a hit and run, with no one witnessing the crime, where the culprit gets away scot free.  In a brief flashback sequence, there is an extra layer of guilt heaped upon Mildred for the last words coming out of her mouth just before Angela was raped and murdered, which only add to what is already an excruciating pain that never dissipates.  Mildred is an angry women, apparently mad at everyone, cursing out everyone she encounters with a mouth like a sailor, where she just feels like there is no justice left in the world.  Yet there are moments when her anger subsides and she turns instantly tender and understanding, where her mood shifts on a dime, such as when Willoughby coughs up blood during an interrogation, where a shock of mortality brings us all to our knees, becoming instantly sympathetic, no matter our beliefs.  These moments occur throughout the film, having a humanizing effect, even as it comically grows even more absurd.  There’s an interesting use of music, particularly a mournful Joan Baez rendition of a Civil War lament, Joan Baez - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - YouTube (3:26), which comes at a particularly incendiary moment, adding yet another layer of Civil War madness and grief, recounting the escalating saga of brother against brother unending violence that seems to perpetuate itself when every act is retaliated against, leading to a neverending stream of aggression and hostility, leaving hordes of victims in the wake, each one an inconsolable loss exactly like Angela.  There’s also an interesting use of letters in the film, each one coming from the grave, which are read out loud, offering a reservoir of wisdom and humor that seems to catch viewers by surprise, if only due to how unorthodox this technique seems to be, unearthing formidable emotions that have a healing effect on the community, where the anger and bitterness remain, but there is a chance it may subside into something else altogether, like forgiveness, perhaps even a friendship.       

The Way, Way Back

THE WAY, WAY BACK          C+               

USA  (103 mi)  2013  d:  Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

It’s like spring break for adults.         —Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb)

Beware of false advertising when it comes to summer movies, where one of the first out of the block, released over the 4th of July weekend, is THE WAY, WAY BACK, where a plethora of reviews are calling this similar in tone to LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006), but don’t for a second believe it.  While the two films share the same studio, Fox Searchlight, which is trumpeting the dubious connection in their ad campaign, and has two members of the same cast in Steve Carell and Toni Collette, both are a huge disappointment.  This is the same studio, by the way, that sued director Kenneth Lonergan and considered his film 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #2 Margaret unreleasable, so it sat unseen on the studio shelves for 6 years before releasing the film for a single week, making sure as few people as possible saw the film.  And for those looking for laughs and a feelgood comedy…oops, we’re sorry, but this is a film about the devastating consequences of divorce and adult bullying, where the lives of kids are secondary and get tossed around like leaves in the wind.  What’s missing in this film is any hint of character development, which was the strong suit of MISS SUNSHINE, filled with memorable, and even lovable, characters.  Not so here, as Steve Carell plays the most obnoxious person in the universe, rivaling Ben Stiller in GREENBERG (2010), a loathsome character the audience will simply hate, while Allison Janney plays the second most obnoxious person in the universe, the crazy neighbor next door who constantly has a drink in her hand and whose high-pitched, hysterical laugh can be heard throughout, that insincere kind of laugh that only gets louder as the jokes get less funny.  What these two have in common is their tunnel vision ability to ignore and alienate kids through the absolute worst parenting techniques, where the example they serve is little more than pathetic.  What’s worse, the film uses their infantile behavior for comic laughs, reversing the roles, where it’s the adults who act recklessly and irresponsibly, while most of the children are all much more mature. 

Written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the duo who co-wrote (along with the director) Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011), though this was written before that film, where there appear to be two separate stories, the first of which involves the dysfunctional world of adults, where without any back story, a divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette, another troubled woman) and her painfully shy 14-year old son Duncan (Liam James), tag along with her new overbearing boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), and his typically superficial daughter Steph (Zoe Levin) and head to Trent’s summer house on the beach in Massachusetts.  The title references the position in the car where the anti-social Duncan chooses to sit, in the way, way back of the stationwagon facing in the opposite direction of the other occupants.  When they arrive, Betty (Allison Janney) enthusiastically announces she’s off the wagon and greets them as an alcoholic disaster waiting to happen, while making excuses for the blasé behavior of her own two kids, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), a moody teenager a few years older than Duncan, and Peter (River Alexander), the youngest and most ignored kid in the movie, who has a problem with one traveling eye, so his mother continually wants him to wear a patch out of sheer embarrassment.  By the end of the film, however, the kid is adorable.  Another couple joins them, Kip (Rob Corddry), the neighbor with a boat, and his promiscuous wife Joan (Amanda Peet) that Trent continually leers at.  While these adults have backyard barbeque and drinking parties that go on into all hours of the night and morning, occasionally indulging in a little weed as well, buying from one of the neighbor kids, they make Duncan’s life a living hell, especially Trent, who steamrolls him every chance he gets, literally squashing any sense of self-esteem, continually making him feel worthless.  The only worse movie parent that comes to mind is the Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) in The Night of the Hunter (1955), and he’s a psychopathic knife-wielding murderer.

If you’re not bored to tears by the first half, where the generic sounding indie music is equally bland, showing no originality whatsoever, usually the staple for these kinds of films, as they’re usually about rebellious individuality, thankfully the film has a second half, where Duncan finds a water park on the other end of town, which may as well be another movie.  While never reaching the sarcastic humor and observational honesty of Adventureland (2009), similarly set in an amusement park, this one includes still more infantile adults, like those working at the park, which includes both writers in amusing roles, and it also includes the co-manager Owen, Sam Rockwell, who is staggeringly hilarious in his role.  Besides being a natural born clown that thrives on doing comedy bits and being the center of attention at an amusement park, causing grief to his more responsible wife Caitlin, Maya Rudolph, the other co-manager who actually has to run things, Owen turns out to be the friend that Duncan has been looking for, offering him a job there for the summer.  Owen literally turns the kid’s life around, placing him in situations where he has to find his way, and then trusting that he’ll succeed, actually giving him a life that he never felt like he had.  Trent only gets worse, twisting the screws of bad taste, while Duncan actually develops a friendship with the pretty girl next door, Susanna, while concealing the job, the developing relationships, and everything else from his family, who were ignoring him anyway except to berate him and boss him around.  While Duncan is the star, he’s only mildly effective in the role, perhaps overly passive, and not all that interesting, while Sam Rockwell steals every scene he’s in, literally altering the focus of the film, becoming the only character worth paying attention to, delivering one of the best performances of his career.  Because Rockwell is so funny, one might overlook the complexity of his growing friendship with Duncan, the way he nurtures the kid and treats him like an adult, even as he has his own personal growing up issues that need to be worked out.  It’s a killer of a performance, one that deserves to be in a better film, which may be why the studio is hyping this film to be more than it is.  In truth, the film raises some unpleasant social issues and then leaves them hanging at the end of the picture, never addressing the reality of what actually matters.    

Seven Psychopaths

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS                   B-                   

Great Britain  (110 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Martin McDonagh            Official site

Of the three films released by the McDonagh brothers, including Martin’s In Bruges (2008) and John Michael’s The Guard (2011), this is easily the weakest of the three, another black comedy that takes pains with the audience to explain the multiple ideas in conceiving a story, that becomes more about the process of writing, digressing into multiple side stories, always feeling experimental and incomplete, never really feeling much like an actual movie.  Part of the problem is the overly self-conscious nature of the film, a film about the making of a movie, which stops every so often and shares with the audience where it wants to go before it goes there, a device that often does not work.  This may work better in a theater production, where on different nights the actors might actually change the story and use the same clues to different outcomes.  But in a movie, first and foremost there needs to be sustained suspense, dramatic conflict and tension, which is all but absent when the story continually stops as the characters examine the choices to be made, always discussing the possible outcomes before they happen, so when they do, it’s not much of a surprise.  The technique of exposing the writing as the film is progressing is a difficult undertaking, often interfering in the overall interest, where some will find this continually annoying.  Perhaps the best example of this is the highly popular road movie Y TU MAMA TAMBIÉN (2001) by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, an otherwise funny and highly entertaining film that is constantly interrupted by a narrator who literally stops the film in order to add some often cheeky narration, a device the interferes with the rhythm and actually changes the pace of the film.  Similarly, Spike Jonze working on a continually evolving Charlie Kaufman screenplay in ADAPTATION (2002) is another headspinner, literally a screenplay about a screenwriter writing a screenplay adaptation of a book.  Some may find this device clever, while others will find it distracting and overly cute. 

In the two earlier works, the writing of the McDonagh brothers is risqué, marvelously inventive, and among the more hilarious films seen in the past few years, and this is a wacky and thoroughly enjoyable adventure as well, where superb acting is always a key to their work.  But this film continually gets sidetracked and bogged down, where the action literally stops as the characters themselves mull over what happens next.  Colin Farrell as Marty is the boozehound screenwriter living in the gorgeous LA digs with the beautiful dame, Abbie Cornish as a trophy girlfriend, while best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is continually hovering around him conspiring to change Marty’s life, especially the alcoholism, where the first change seems to be getting Marty kicked out of his girlfriend’s house for his outrageous behavior while drunk, which, of course, he can’t remember.  As he reviews what he’s got so far, writing a new movie script, all he has is a title, as he hasn’t figured out who the psychopaths are or what they do yet.  Billy throws ideas at him left and right, telling him stories or offering newspaper clippings, and slowly, the ideas come, which are visualized onscreen as psychopath #1 and #2, etc. expressed in vignette fashion until the list is complete.  Meanwhile Billy has a side con game going with Hans (Christopher Walken), where they steal pet dogs in a busy upscale block where there’s so much activity it’s easy not to notice the pets are even missing, and then return them as Good Samaritans for a cash reward.  This operation produces steady income until they steal the wrong guy’s dog, Charlie (Woody Harrelson), a local gangster who goes on a rampage trying to find him.  Meanwhile several other so-called psychopaths are on the loose, all allegedly creating mayhem, but they seem to get mixed up in a constantly evolving world of ideas/fantasy/stories where they continually get lost, only to be pulled out of a hat later.  

Undoubtedly, there is some brilliant dialogue written here, and some hilarious lines that almost get lost in the weirdness of what’s happening, where truth and fiction merge as a writer’s ideas are expressed in fantasy scenes, where underneath it all a script is being developed, and there are flashback sequences of various stories being told, all mixed together in a strange brew that doesn’t really hold together the abundance of ideas being offered.  There is a theatricality to the way ideas continually accumulate, but there is little tension or build up of suspense, so when events eventually happen, they feel more like random and isolated events rather than something connected to a whole.  The strength of the film is in its characters, where Rockwell in particular, along with Walken, are as good as they’ve been in years, where they have a brilliantly developed scene in a bar late in the film where Marty is telling Hans (with Billy trying to stop him) the story of the Buddhist/Amish/Quaker psychopath which resonates deeply with Hans, where Tom Waits has an equally compelling backstory, along with a Viet Cong monk who thinks the war is not really over.  Part of the problem is the director’s curious strategy to open the film a certain way, meeting the audience’s expectations, giving them plenty of action scenes, building up the suspense, but then going into a KILL BILL Pt. 2 (2004) style meditation on everything that’s come before, slowing everything down into an utter calm where each character seems to wander off in their own directions.  Never feeling much like a cohesive whole afterwards, instead it’s an obsessive passion on creating individual vignettes strewn together, like an opening scene, Tom Waits’ flashback, a bravura graveyard sequence, the expendable (mis)treatment of women, a hooker that learns to speak Vietnamese at Yale, a tape recorded monologue, a final shoot out (with a gun that jams) set in the desert of a national park next to a sign reading “no shooting allowed,” where by the end it’s questionable whether the project actually works or not.  Was it hilarious?  Individual moments, Hell yes, but does it make us care or come together and work collectively like some kind of existentialist take on writing or living in the modern world, probably not.

The Sitter

THE SITTER               C                    

USA  (81 mi)  2011  d:  David Gordon Green

One way to approach David Gordon Green’s descent away from art films and into the more lucrative Hollywood industry is to think of this movie as little more than an extended short, as basically this is a one idea film, all the things that could go wrong with a completely inept and unqualified babysitter, using a variation on WC Field’s contemptuous view of children theme and then attacking the audience with anarchistic set pieces that will either leave you laughing at the derisive nature of the beast or bolting from the theater in disgust.  If the idea is simply to provoke a reaction, then Green has likely succeeded, though this was probably more fun on the set than the finished product onscreen, likely the case in far too many comedies.  What’s missing here is a cohesive whole, as instead it’s something of a sprawling mess of various likely improvised ideas that never really come together.   

Rather than a just missed comedy, this may be a huge quasi experimental misstep that is amusing by just how far away from comedy this movie occasionally travels, reminiscent of the Macaulay Caulkin HOME ALONE (1990, 1992) series which was one extended misadventure filled with ludicrous set ups and sight gags that in themselves became ridiculous after awhile.  What this mostly resembles, however, are the Doctor Seuss children stories, where kids are left pretty much on their own with no discernable adult presence where they run amok creating havoc and mischief for a brief period before everything returns back to normal by the time their parents get home.  That’s pretty much the film, which includes the random screw ups of the adult sitter in charge, the man-child Jonah Hill as the clueless Noah.  It always helps if the kids can have mature moments when they act much older than their ages, allowing each, by the end, to benefit from the time spent with one other. 

From the outset, using his familiar cinematographer Tim Orr, Green loves to use inventive camera shots, from double to triple screen, superimposed imagery, slow mo and fast action sequences, and even a sideways cam, all a bit offsetting and disruptive from the comfort zone of the viewer, but also offering a taste of the world being viewed from a slightly different vantage point that has tilted askew.  While some may find stereotypes offensive, they are fairly prevalent in comedy sketches, and this film has a field day exuding the pleasures of exploitation flicks which are in the wheelhouse of this director who grew up with 70’s and 80's films.  Taking a riff on the American mainstream family portrayal, Green takes a look at living in the posh neighborhoods of the lily white suburbs with overly pampered and alienated kids, clueless parents who have their own sexual repressive and adulterous issues, where one parent routinely has to look away in order to maintain the high quality of life to which they’ve become accustomed, where morality is a smokescreen, something you purchase in order to impress others with instead of upholding any personal convictions. 

This is the backdrop of the story, where Noah, an aimless, overweight and unemployed twenty something who has amounted to nothing in life is still living at home with his single mother, where they both commiserate over the evils of his absent dad who has left them high and dry, now running a highly successful business yet still lags woefully behind on his alimony payments.  Noah routinely degrades himself for female companionship, where self-absorbed Marisa (Air Gaynor) allows him to pleasure her while keeping all other sexual contact off the table.  When his mom finally has a chance to go out and have an evening of her own, it’s nearly spoiled when the couple she’s going to a social event with loses their babysitter at the last moment, allowing Noah to fill in, where he’s interestingly introduced to three misfits, Slater (Max Records), the overmedicated kid who's pretty much afraid of all human contact, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), the adopted Central American child with a penchant for explosives and wearing cowboy boots with pajamas, and Blithe (Landry Bender), the reincarnation of Jonbenet Ramsey, an adorable young child with an eye on becoming a celebrity with a flair for gossip and the excessive use of sparkle make up. 

When Marisa calls from a party offering full sexual contact if he’ll score some coke and come pick her up, all bets are off on conventional babysitting as Noah stashes the kids in the back of the family minivan for a rollicking escapade on the town, where he has a few stops to make along the way, all of which explode in his face with things going wrong, including a hilarious trip to a warehouse filled with scantily clad male bodybuilders where a gay escort on roller skates (Sean Patrick Doyle) leads them inside to see Karl (Sam Rockwell), the coked up, out of control drug dealer (with his portrait on the wall) who wants everybody to be his friend, actually ranking them by number, where he’s continually challenged to make on the spot readjustments with each new person he meets.  Karl believes in manly hugs, loyalty and likeability, pointing guns at anyone who falls out of line, which is Noah when Rodrigo makes off with Karl’s personal stash.  Turning into something of a spirited, free wheeling romp, where blacksploitation action, gangsta rap, and a gorgeous black girl friend Roxanne (Kylie Bunbury) literally drop out of the sky offering him a reprieve from the mediocrity of life in the suburbs.  A lighthearted story about being true to yourself, it’s a minor riff on middle class complacency, much of which feels generic and is not so much about anything as expressing a message of creating your own unique style of living, where it’s best not to take anyone or anything for granted. While enjoyable at times, it’s also completely forgettable.