‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ Trailer

Hollywood is built on nepotism, meaning that siblings often end up working in the same business. Usually you can tell which sibling has the talent and which one is coasting, but there are some families that prove that the talent gene may be hereditary-Joel and Ethan Coen, Casey and Ben Affleck, and Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, just to name a few. One of the best brotherly duos in the game right now are the brothers McDonagh. They both have a gift for world building, creating complex stories of human behavior layered in irony and the blackest of comedies. John Michael McDonagh is the one who stole my heart with Calvary, but it is brother Martin who is the most famous, thanks to his one-two punch of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. I have only seen the latter film, and not the supposedly superior former, but I may have to change that soon, because McDonagh has a new film, and the trailer looks fantastic.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri follows bitter and cynical mother Mildred Hayes (Academy Award-winner Frances McDormand). It’s been months since her daughter was brutally murdered, and the police department is still indifferent in finding her killer. When Mildred decides to take matters into her own hands, putting up billboards outside of town insinuating the police department would rather harass the black people in their little town than actually do their jobs, she finds herself at war with the entire department, led by tired and sympathetic sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and bumbling and violence-prone Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell).

To be honest, I really didn’t know anything about this movie before this trailer. Hell, I didn’t know it existed a few weeks ago. But you can bet this is now one of my most anticipated of the year. McDonagh is a great writer, the rest of the cast includes Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges (thus making this a cast of four Oscar nominees), and Caleb Landry Jones, and most important of all, this is a f*cking funny trailer. I mean, the last fifteen seconds alone had me laughing harder than I have in a very long time. Give it a watch, and I will get back to you in the near future when this film has a release date. It is currently only slated for “2017,” which means it is either coming this summer or will wait for a fall festival lineup (this could be a Cannes or Toronto contender). Please note that this is a red band trailer, and is therefore NSFW. If you need me, I’ll be watching In Bruges in preparation.