Comment

Dec 14, 2018aafleming rated this title 0.5 out of 5 stars
Just . . . so. . . bad. Clearly many people don't agree and think this is a GREAT movie. I just don't get it. This movie wanted to be Fargo, wanted it so bad, but failed miserably. Fargo had a crime and a lot of nutty people, but the nutty people were believable. Most of the people in this movie do things for no apparent reason. They are nutty not because it is an intrinsic part of their characters, but just so the movie can have nutty people in it. There is a little person in the movie (and he is constantly referred to as a "dwarf" or "midget") for no apparent reason. The old geezer police chief has an incredibly young wife with an English accent for no apparent reason. The ex-husband's young girlfriend is portrayed as embarrassingly stupid, again for no apparent reason. There are huge plot holes. Just for instance, does this town not have a city council or a mayor? Apparently the police and citizens are free to do exactly as they please with no outside interference and just solve their disputes with various acts of violence. Everybody gets mad at the mother for putting up the billboards because everybody loves the dying police chief. So why are he and the other cops so mad? They get more support from the town, not less, as a result of the billboards. The new police chief watches the "bad cop" throw a guy out a window and beat him almost to death and fires him but does not arrest him? The mother burns down the police station and a guy is horribly burned but the new police chief just takes the word of another citizen that he was with her at the time and doesn't investigate her any further? The "bad cop" gets a postmortem letter from the old police chief urging him to be a better person and immediately reforms? This extremely small and isolated town has a large gift shop which provides employment for the owner AND the mother? It costs $5000 a month to rent old falling-down billboards on a road nobody drives on? Etc., etc. etc.