SLING BLADE
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
>From the opening scene in an asylum for the criminally insane to the film's inevitable end, we are caught up in a marvelously tense film that moves inexorably to its climax. While the story is grim but fascinating, the great performance of Billy Bob Thornton as Karl Childers is worthy of Oscar nomination.
Karl Childers is slightly retarded, enough so that his slack-jawed expression never changes. Before he speaks you can see the wheels in his head turning and mulling over what he is about to say. And when he has spoken, his sentence is punctuated with a kind of grunt as if getting the words out was difficult.. Add to his facial expression that he walks with a slight forward stoop as his feet seem to pound the very ground he walks on, and you have an unforgettable character and one wonderful acting performance that is sustained throughout the entire film.
Childers is in the asylum because he caught his mother and the town bully nude in bed. Believing that what they were doing was wrong, wrong, wrong, he kills them with a whack of his sling blade. As the film opens, he is sitting near a window with another inmate, Charles, (J. T. Walsh) as Charles expounds on some of his deeds. This is greeted with utter silence by Childers. Now it time for Childers to be released from the asylum. He has served his time of 25 years and is now declared "cured" and must leave despite his not wanting to go into the outside world. But the law is the law and the law says he cannot legally remain in the asylum.
The story now takes on new dimensions. Karl is a talented mechanic who, with the warden's help, gets a job. Karl meets the youngster, Frank, (Lucas Black) who befriends him; a first for Karl who is accustomed to always being judged. Frank talks his mother, Linda, (Natalie Canerday) into letting Karl live with them but a problem arises in the form of a frequently drunk and vicious boyfriend of Linda's, Doyle (Dwight Yoakam). Vaughan Cunningham (Jack Ritter) is Linda's best friend, gay, who is attempting to live unobtrusively in Bible Belt country; not easy, especially with the abusive Doyle around to upbraid him for his homosexuality.
Karl witnesses everything that is happening in the house and one of his fears is that the young Frank will be beaten by the drunken Doyle, Without saying a word, Frank's thoughts are conveyed to us and we know that things will shortly take a new turn.
Everyone in the film does more than justice to their role but Billy Bob Thornton is phenomenal. Star of the film, writer and director, Thornton has turned in a great film. This should not be entirely unexpected as, although this is his directorial debut in a full-length film and the first film he has written by himself, he co-authored with Tom Epperson the excellent A FAMILY THING.
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Ben Hoffman
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