I should have looked to see who the writer and director of this was before watching. Had I known that "In Bruges" wrote and directed this as well, I might have avoided it, or at least gone in with no expectations. Perhaps then I would also have been less surpristed by the weird feel of the characters which is explained by the writer's ignorance of the sort of people he is trying to portray. The overall concept of the film is good, but almost every element of it is poorly executed. I'm somewhat puzzled that none of the actors, especially Frances McDormand did not review their dialogue and protest that their characters were stilted and not quite right, kind of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers imitations of real people. Overall, it was a waste of an extraordinary ensemble cast, especially the principals, McDormand and Rockwell who each do a very good job with the material they were given, but also a waste of Peter Dinklage who seemed to be there just to be the midget, and Clarke Peters who had basically nothing to do. I'm not a prude for language, but the use of it in this movie reminded me of the anecdote about Mark Twain responding to his wife's attempt to shame him with a stream of vulgarity, saying, "You have the notes, but you just ain't got the music." The violence was completely out of kilter also because the director never adequately set a tone to the movie. Was the violence supposed to be comic, and that is why nobody gets arrested, or was it supposed to be realistic and the characters in the show are really that stupid? It's impossible to understand during the course of the film. One starts out very much wanting to be sympathetic with McDormand's character and then, in desperation with any character in the movie, but to no avail. Each of the main characters turn out to be execrable, unsympathetic people with no consistent human pathos. The final "villain" character is nothing more than a tremendous plot hole so deep and dense that he is a veritable black hole that sucks all suspension of disbelief down into an alternate universe, leaving one wishing that another choice of movie had been made.

I give it three stars because the actors all acted and the images made it to film okay. Other than that, I sincerely wish the movie had never been made.