"Sling Blade" (1996) - Movie Review

I got a very strong feeling that Billy Bob Thornton never did approach any of the other directors with his script nor did he think twice about playing Karl Childers in “Sling Blade”. Some one in the deepest love for the movies and the writing they have who not only worked hard but considerably empathized with the letters in it would know some decisions are obvious that there is no need for any more considerations of options. Seeing “Sling Blade” more than the character study of the mentally challenged Karl is about Thornton. It is his film through out with his sweat and grains of clarity. This is “Sling Blade”.

Southern tales beckons an eerie quality. Silence conquers the best of the dialogues and the stillness of a dry after noon morphs to the moods of the people living in it. The air around these people carries a tension. Every Southern story has that quality that seeps in and feels home. Take it the documentary of “Searching for the Wrong Eyes Jesus” or David Gordon Green’s “Undertow”. The elements of that culture is haunting, soothing, scary and bluntly transparent. “Sling Blade” embarks through that quality as it should and have set up that in those mentioned two films which came later.

There is no secrecy in the past about Karl. In the dark and misty morning of the State hospital is him ready to be set free after several decades. He summarizes his life to the journalist and tells it with a force of clear understanding to the receiver. “I like the way he talks” says young Frank (Lucas Black) when he befriends Karl. Karl as his characteristics goes about his way to doing things. The disconnect from him to the rest of the world becomes obvious as we get to know him. Yet there is a part which has been silenced in the atrocity of the actions he did. He killed a boy whom he thought was raping his mother only to be later found that it was her lover. That drove him to kill her too. This fact he never keeps to himself and communicates to the people he meet. Strangely enough every one in a toned up manner to these kind of happenings accept him. Even the vicious boy friend of Frank’s Mom (Natalie Canerday) Doyle (Dwight Yoakam) does not mind the killings but he carries a hate for his appearance and behaviour.

This unsettling environment Doyle sets in for the Karl’s new friend Frank becomes to reflect his past. Billy Bob Thornton does one of the most incredible acting. He does not overdo the act of being Karl. He does not make him to come out of the character to be more communicative. His control in guarding that territory of letting his character go and come to the brittle situations he is put through are test of the acting. It never becomes a joke and the greatest of the things to not make it awkward. In the scenes upcoming the first, we become to embrace this character without any prejudice or presumptions. Keeping as to think like that is where the actor and the writer/director Thornton wins completely.

For all this effort and presentation, “Sling Blade” still is not a great work personally. Its nature of the story makes it that way. It is of course predictable in where it is going but the journey is crucial and in it while the movie has many touching moments still needs a little more ounce of energy to carry it through in a grand fashion. And when I say grand, not in the flowery desecration but in a more subtlety in the obvious resultant of where the story is going.

The supporting characters especially from Dwight Yoakam is threatening and wonder to think how it is such an ease in the showing of a character to bring down the situation to ticking time bomb. Whenever Doyle is around, trouble is bound to happen and we expect Karl to snap at him, but of course he does not. That is the scare the director keeps us in the leash.

It is a story about human qualities of being the utmost good and the utmost evil at the same time. Our animal part is always at the loose and tempts in the pleasure of letting it out. The never ending thoughts of unspeakable acts and emotions are battled across in us keeping the cruelty at the bay. The breakage of that is easy but maintaining is what makes us human. Karl got out of it at an age when violence is just a word and in that he becomes the silent observer of scrutinizing his action in tiny measure. The next calculated let out of that animal will be a clear and consequential act. That becomes the story of Karl and the people he comes to love.