It wasn't me who started defending/ describing the film as a period piece. It's a dead end way of approaching it. Yes, you could compare it to a western in terms of settings and characters being archetypes as opposed to realistic - that's certainly closer to what McD is doing. But for me, they were less archetypes than really hollow and uninteresting stereotypes. I found the film incredibly shallow and dull. Much and all as I love Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, I also didn't think much of their performances, which were both very one note (but not really their fault because the characters were one note). Bottom line, I hate McDonagh's shtick, and I think it is just shtick, and it's well discussed in the article. I know other people like the film and that's fine.