Sling Blade Details

One of the most stunning movies you will ever see

?Sling Blade? is an emotional roller coaster of a film which establishes Billy Bob Thornton as one the best actors, writers, and directors around toady. ?Sling Blade? revolves around the story of the mentally handicapped Karl Childers, who is committed to a mental hospital at the age of twelve for double murder of his mother and her lover, and on release his attempt as an adult to make it in the outside world. Upon his release Childers is given a mechanics job fixing lawn mower engines and befriends a young boy, his widowed mother, and her gay best friend. Unfortunately, the mother's drunken, violent boyfriend cannot accept Karl getting in the way of his relationship, and sets out to make things miserable for everyone, especially the young boy. As the film moves along, there can be no doubt where things are going to end up. You can see the conflict brewing from miles away, but the action holds your interest throughout. The ultimate tragedy of ?Sling Blade? is that Childers is a basically kind hearted gentle soul whose abusive childhood and marginal intelligence made him unable to function without violence. More importantly, deep down Childers knows this; he knows he cannot function as a free man, and simply cannot protect the ones he loves without violence. The result is one of the most sympathetic and stunning performances of character ever seen in a movie, and quite deservedly has resulted as Billy Bob Thornton being regarded as one of the great heavyweights of movie acting. ?Sling Blade? is a beautifully written, acted and directed film that deserves much praise and attention, and an experience you will not forget.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Sling Blade

I can't believe it has taken me 10 years to discover this stunning piece of cinema. A remarkeably assured directorial debut from Billy Bob Thornton who, as Director, is unobtruisve but never lets the film become flat, always having an eye for an interesting composition and often putting people at opposite sides of the frame. As his own star Thornton is just astounding, if you didn't know better you'd swear that he was, in fact, like Karl. From the voice to the posture and gait to the way he never looks directly at the person he's speaking to Thornton just vanishes within Karl. The supporting cast are also excellent with particularly good turns from Dwight Yoakam as an abusive boyfriend, John Ritter whose sensetive performance brings home just how much of a loss his early death was and young Lucas Black is great as Karl's friend Frank. Slow paced and concerned with the intricacy of the relationships between the charactersSling Blade grows ever more compelling from scene to scene, particularly in the last 15 minutes as you realise what the ending is going to be. There are precious few American movies that are this happy to simply be about people and to watch them live their lives, letting that, rather than an overarching plot, dictate the flow of the story and this one deserves to be celebrated.