MC Frances pays $5000 to rent the three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri for a month. Because writer/director Martin McDonagh is also a superb playwright, his talk sings. Sam Rockwell plays Dixon, an aggressive and largely incompetent police officer who takes Mildred’s vendetta personally. So if you haven’t seen Martin McDonagh’s dark comedic masterpiece not only should you … On a lonely stretch of road in the Midwest, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) drives a beat-up station wagon past a trio of dilapidated billboards less than a mile from her home. I told you that earlier setup would pay off eventually. (2) Between a surface trait and a hidden truth (a charming criminal). Marching into the local advertising bureau she decides to rent them for a year. We learn SRPO Sam has previously tortured blacks during interrogations, driving all the rest of them out of town. But Mildred doesn't care about ruffling a few feathers. We learn it took Stupid Racist Police Cadet (SRPC) Sam 6 years to graduate from police academy which is really bad when you consider even Steve Guttenberg managed to do it in the normal 3 or so months. (Though McDonagh has joked that he’ll explore it in the sequel, he told Yahoo Entertainment that he is utterly opposed to making sequels.) The next day the billboards carry three simple messages: “Raped while dying”, “And still no arrests”, and “How come, Chief Willoughby?” In doing so and by shaming the local police for not solving the crime of her daughter’s murder, Mildred Hayes exposes much more than she could have ever imagined.
The billboard worker we also meet there is one of two black people left in Ebbing, Missouri. The incendiary message quickly becomes the talk of the town, and the close-knit community's affection for Willoughby puts Mildred at odds with just about everyone, from the local dentist (who tries to exact revenge by refusing to give Mildred Novocaine during a root canal and getting a hole drilled through his hand in the process), to Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an oafish, alcoholic deputy with a cruel streak, to Mildred's violent ex-husband (John Hawkes), who left her for a woman half his age and only comes around to occasionally berate Mildred and their son (Lucas Hedges). Let’s just pretend I’m being clever about time like Pulp Fiction.