Sling Blade (1996)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This film has great acting and great dialogue. The characters are believable and really draw you in with their unique personalities. If you are looking for a fun film, watch this on a different night. It has some dark overtones, but it's thought provoking and touches some raw emotions. The thought provoking portion deals with morals, religion, and absolute right and wrong. I don't think this movie has an agenda other than to make you think, which it does very well.I've watched this movie about 3 times over the last 18 years and I've enjoyed it each time. This is one of those movies which can't be missed.

Despite Billy Bob Thornton's "Carl" voice being mocked ad nauseum, this IMO is one of the best movies ever made. The originality of the story and the main character are genius. Plot points are backed, not so much by established story lines, but by the richness of the characters from Frank's need for a father figure, Karl's need to be accepted, Doyle's redneck prejudices and Vaughn's identity as a gay man in a small southern town. These are very shallow explanations for the richness of each character, but the story line cannot be beat down to the somewhat tragic but salvational ending. If you haven't seen this movie, it is the best of BB Thornton's directorial efforts and extremely tough to beat for filmmaking.

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."

After watching this movie, I just think, "wow, I'll never forget this..."You just have to see to understand. The plot is nothing riveting on paper. The merit of this movie is all about the wonderful acting performances. Besides Billy-Bob of course, I especially thought the actor who played the young boy was amazing. Ritter's portrayal of a flaming gay man is charming without being over-the-top.I can see someone disliking the movie, it is kind of slow-paced, and full of simple, unglamorous southern people living their unglamorous lives.To me this movie is about how difficult it is to live in this dangerous, complicated world with an open heart. It's about the banality of evil, and the struggle to cope with a world that's full of that evil: A world where the employer abuses the worker, then the worker comes home and beats his kid, and then the kid grows up to be someone who continues the cycle. A world where those with mental disabilities have nowhere to go, and where mothers are forced to depend on abusers to provide for themselves and their kids.Karl is supposed to be "mentally challenged" and "different", but I interpret his role as representing the inner child inside of all of us. Throughout the movie he demonstrates a simple kind of wisdom, he is the voice of common-sense. I thought the movie would be about him getting into conflicts due to misunderstanding, or people rejecting him. Instead his character behaves quite rationally, and he is adept at connecting with and winning the trust of the people around him. He acts odd but he demonstrates a level of social intelligence that many "normal" people lack. His characteristic tone of voice seems to represent someone who speaks from their gut, but is struggling and subconsciously hesitant to express themselves because they are just so full of feeling that they just shut down somewhere along the line because they had nowhere appropriate to direct and express all that emotional energy.Watching Thornton play Karl is touching because it connects you that simple, innocent, yet dangerous part of yourself. The heart of you that just wants to live life, enjoy the simple things, the part of you that dares to long for a world where children don't suffer, where there are answers and justice.