SLING BLADE
A film review by John Bauer
Copyright 1997 John Bauer
***1/2 (out of 4)
Sometimes it is difficult to *not* resist the hype surrounding a movie. We are so saturated with media pronouncements of greatness that it seems nothing could ever fulfill our heightened expectations. So it is with pleasure that I can say that the subtle charms of SLING BLADE were able to overcome the burden of lavish praise.
For such a low-key film, this is no mean feat. There are no sumptuous landscapes to sweep you away, no grand acting gestures to amuse and entertain, not really much in the way of high drama to rivet your attention. What we get instead is a small tale with big implications, just as a brief shot of a man on a railroad bridge imparts nothing directly but conveys much through the image.
The reason the story carries so much weight lies mainly in the performance of writer-director Billy Bob Thornton. Like a less fantastical Forrest Gump, his character Karl Childers is earnest but somewhat dim. Unlike the former's humorous intersections with American history, however, Karl's earnestness leads him to real trouble. And when Karl finally concludes near the end of the film that in his little piece of Arkansas "the world is too large," we readily sympathize.
The heart of the film is about Karl's relationship with a fatherless boy, well-played by Lucas Black. But its soul is about Karl's struggle for redemption and a place in the world. Karl counts among his few possessions a Bible which he claims to have read, though he doesn't understand much of it. On the surface, as another character suggests, that makes sense: the Bible is incomprehensible to most of us. But for Karl the things we most readily accept -- such as the sinfulness of murder -- assume a complexity that forces him into tragic paradoxes. In part this is because he is incapable of understanding the complications of ordinary life that we take for granted; but he is also a victim of our need for order, for justice in black and white.
There are some holes in the script, the biggest being the all-too-easy acceptance of Karl by the small town society he encounters. I would think that his crimes would make him infamous and something of a bogeyman around town; rather, he is practically greeted with open arms wherever he goes. There are other, lesser tugs at credibility as well.
But in the end these do not matter. The essentials of the story are strong enough to hold our attention and meaningful enough to penetrate our consciousness. In crafting a small-town morality play that speaks to us all, Billy Bob Thornton has made his world large indeed.
May 1, 1997
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