Sling Blade (1996)

Great Film overall

Fantastic!

As Good As It Gets

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This movie was so engaging and revealed the acting abilities of every one in it. I was impressed to see on of my favorite country entertainers, Dwight Yoakam, do such an excellent job in the role he played. One would have thought he was an actor with previous experience. John Ritter added a new page to his resume. I'm sad that he's no longer with us, but we have that to remind us just how good he was. Most of all, best of all, was Billy Bob Thornton. He's done such great work over time including Legal Colors. But I have to say that his performance in this film was absolutely incredible!

It's an unusual flick, written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, and starring Billy Bob Thornton. He's written himself a juicy role, the kind that wins awards, and he gives it everything he's got.Thornton is a newly released psychiatric patient who had killed his mother and her lover when he was twelve, thinking that she was being raped. Now free after twenty years, he wanders back into a town that regards him at first with suspicion, even though few remember his crime.You can hardly blame the good folks of Dogpatch. They're mostly polite, earnest, God-fearing sons of the soil, while Thornton has a closely shaven head, a chin that is so far jutted out that you could play a hand of solitaire on it, and a maniacal smile fixed to his face. On top of that, he speaks in a voice like that of someone gargling pebbles and he ends his utterance with a lunatic "Mmm-HMMM." He doesn't walk so much as creep, and he rarely looks people in the eye.A stunner of a performance in a film that nicely captures the veneer of politesse and generosity that masks the wellsprings of violence in a small Southern town.I don't think I'll describe too much of the plot. The movie is overlong and the screenplay puts Thornton in the middle of all the rituals and intrigues of small town society. He gets to meet his estranged father, he gets baptized, he gets to meet a slow salesgirl at the local Dollar Store, he serves as a surrogate father to a young boy.The ending is a bit abrupt, as if the screenwriter couldn't think of a truly satisfying ending. As it is, it's a big improvement over Thornton's falling in love with the retarded salesgirl and living happily ever after in a rose-covered cottage. Nobody weeps. There is little sentimentality on display. Only once does the closed-mouthed Thornton begin to spout what sound a little too much like folk poetry. "Thet there boy lives in his hort and there ain't much room in there fer him." We know fairly soon who's good and who's bad. That's rather a weakness. Yet there really IS only one bad guy, Dwight Yoakam, the singer, who gives a scary performance as the abusive, hateful suitor who dislikes whimpering kids and retards. Of course, when he's bad, he's very, very bad, but he tries to be good, really he does. And he features in a comic scene in which he gets his cowboy band together and they play the lousiest music that ever assailed the human ear, and later argue about which of their works is most poetic.Some of the film could have been condensed. Thornton doesn't make it with the salesgirl. Okay. It takes ten minutes to establish that in the film. It could have been dealt with in one or two. The baptism doesn't signal any change in Thornton's character. It just pads the film out and renders it sluggish, like the muddy stream in which the born again are dunked. I suspect the scenes were ornamental enactments of Billy Bob Thornton's childhood memories of Arkansas. He must have thought them sensitive and evocative but, as an obscure writer said, "Kill all your darlings."

The movie Sling Blade, written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, deserves a rating of 8.5 out of 10. This film was very well written, and its 1990's film elements make it very enjoyable to watch. Sling Blade is about a special needs man named Karl Childers (played by Billy Bob Thornton) who once released from a mental hospital for murdering his mother and her boyfriend, befriends a young boy named Frank (played by Lucas Black) and his family. The acting done by Thornton was absolutely phenomenal, considering the fact that he had to play the role of a mentally "insane" human. One of my favorite aspects of this movie is that although Karl came from a mental institution for murder, he has such a big heart and emotional background. Frank and his mother, Linda (played by Natalie Canerday), live with a cruel alcoholic named Doyle that brings their life a lot of trouble. Karl and Franks relationship is heartwarming, because although they are years apart, they love, care, and protect each other. Linda enjoys Karl's friendship with her son because Frank loves his company, but Doyle doesn't approve because he is "crazy" and a "stupid retard". Dwight Yoakam (the man that plays Doyle) did a successful job at doing what the director wanted him to do, which I believe is making viewers hate Doyle. This film brought me to tears, and I think in a way that's why I enjoyed it so much. It was so emotional and beautifully written, and the acting never failed to impress me.

Passion projects in Hollywood are very rare, but when you see them done with the skill and tenderness of Sling Blade, it makes you feel good that they're so rare.Billy Bob Thornton is a master filmmaker. It is uncanny how he could be such an effective director whilst also performing the film's most demanding role. It is a testament to how much his cast and crew respected him and trusted the passion he had for his project. His performance as Karl Childers is spectacular. He breaks your heart in every single scene, whether it is him saying thank you for the only time in the film, telling a gay man he doesn't think he'd go to hell, visiting a grave or turning over his only worldly possessions. Its also a testament to Thornton's magnificent screenplay, which is very slow at times but its a slow burn well worth your time.Please watch Sling Blade. It'll break your heart, but you'll love it for it.