We see a lot of blockbuster, big-budget movie trailers here at LRM, and sometimes it’s easy to overlook smaller films telling simple, personal stories. But every once in a while a new independant feature appears that demands our attention, and isn’t afraid to crack us upside the head withits message.

Martin McDonagh, best known for the tragically dark 2008 comedy In Bruges, about a pair of Irish hitmen trying (and failing) to lay low after a botched assassination. In Bruges was wickedly funny and surreal, a great work by a dynamic, new director. However, aside from 2012’s little-seen crime-comedy, Seven Psychopaths, McDonagh has been off the grid.

Well, he’s resurfaced and judging by the trailer for Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the English-born auteur has made a new film that appears to be his funniest, darkest, and edgiest project to-date.

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri tells the story of a single mother’s unflinching quest for justice in the cold case of her daughter’s murder. I grant you, that’s hardly a groundbreaking premise, but McDonagh brings an energy and attitude in this trailer that evokes Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and the Coen Brothers. The cast alone is incredible, including Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, and Peter Dinklage.

McDormand plays the lead role of Mildred Hayes, a hard-nosed, smalltown, factory worker whose fed up with the local police’s handling of her daughter’s murder. This is a mean-spirited, ass-kicking version of McDormand that we haven’t seen in a while; imagine Erin Brockovich if directed by Martin Scorsese. McDormand becomes increasingly (and delightfully) unhinged during the trailer, which gets stranger and much more violent by the end. 

Hoestly, this looks awesome and is definitely something to keep an eye on as it hits theaters later this year.

Here’s the official synopsis:

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughterís murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town’s revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature motherís boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing’s law enforcement is only exacerbated.

Does this Midwestern dark comedy with a strong female lead spark your interest? Let us know in the comments down below!

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SOURCE: Fox Searchlight