More than a decade ago, Martin McDonagh went from Irish playwright to filmmaker when he wrote and directed Six Shooter. The 27-minute short film starred Brendan Gleeson as a grieving husband. It also had an exploding cow and rabbit-cide!
The short received numerous accolades, most notably winning an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film. While Six Shooter would be included in a DVD compilation of 2005 Oscar-nominated short films, it was absent from the home release of Martin McDonagh’s feature debut In Bruges (also starring Gleeson).
When Fox Home Entertainment announced the Blu-ray and 4K UHD release for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (set to arrive on February 27th; the digital release drops on February 13th), it looked like a quick, nearly barebones release prior to the 90th annual Oscars telecast on March 4th. Two extras are listed. One is a making-of featurette that could be a few minutes or a half hour – who knows. But the other, and more intriguing, is the inclusion of Six Shooter. Very appropriate in retrospect as we have Frances McDormand’s Mildred Hayes, a grieving, revenge-fueled mother, paired with Gleeson’s Donnelly, a grief-stricken husband that contemplates ending his own life. What a double feature.
