Recovered Classic: Slingblade

Sling Blade isn’t just a film, it’s a truly mesmerizing experience. Superlatives can justifiably be heaped on the movie, which marked the gobsmacking directorial debut of Billy Bob Thornton. But because there are so many layers to this 1997 Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, it has an ability to profoundly move and engage the viewer in ways that most films can only dream of.

A stunning personal triumph for Thornton, who stars as well as directing and penning the screenplay, it’s the deceptively simple tale of Karl Childers, a retarded man released from a state mental hospital after serving 25 years for killing his mother and her lover when he was a boy. Deemed ready to return to society, Karl would rather stay, but the hospital director finds him a job back in his home town in a repair shop (he’s a genius with small engines) and he slowly tries to find his feet.

This process is helped enormously when Thornton quickly befriends fatherless boy Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black) whose kind-hearted mother Linda (Natalie Chanderlay) agrees to let Karl lodge in their garage. But there’s a storm cloud on the horizon in the ominous shape of Linda’s drunken, bigoted, homophobic boyfriend (the frighteningly convincing Dwight Yoakam) and Karl immediately susses out that he’s trouble. With a capital T.

A captivating parable of good and evil, Sling Blade is a movie which ensares you and just refuses to let go. Thornton’s incredible Oscar-nominated performance is the key to it all, playing Karl as a hunched over figure who speaks in a monotone drawl, a man who might be retarded, but who is nonetheless complex and observant. But there are a number of riveting scenes which also grab the attention, such as Karl’s early description of his extreme upbringing by zealous parents and the night he slaughtered two people with the titular weapon. Some of Thornton’s conversations with Black are equally engrossing as both reveal something of their inner turmoil during some genuinely heart-wrenching exchanges.

The only other major character is John Ritter, who is Canderlay’s boss, a gay man who cares deeply for the Wheatleys and, like Karl, also fears for their safety while Linda’s bad-to-the-bone boyfriend remains on the scene. Indeed, you’re left wondering why she doesn’t just dump him, because he’s downright dangerous, obviously detests her son and appears to have no rightful place in her life.
This is one of two pivotal relationships explored in the movie (the other being between Karl and Frankie) and the contrast between them couldn’t be more stark. One is like a ticking time bomb, the other is based completely on love, friendship and understanding. To his enormous credit, Thornton the director handles them both superbly.
A deeply touching and at times uplifting film which has its moments of both offbeat and dark humour, part of Sling Blade’s magic is the fascination in waiting to discover where the story will go next. Its ultimate outcome is not difficult to predict, but much of the satisfaction is derived from finding out how the story will get there.

Strikingly original films this good are a rarity and often slip under the radar unnoticed, which was pretty much the case in the UK, where Sling Blade was released an absolute age after its Oscar triumph. But there’s never a bad time to discover this remarkable movie for the first time. It will move you, it will amuse you, it will astonish you.

It will restore your faith in America’s ability to make genuinely astounding films.

David Lichtneker

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