Sling Blade
Composite Score: 86.2
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter, Lucas Black, Natalie Canerday, James Hampton, Robert Duvall, Rick Dial, Brent Briscoe, and Christine Renee Ward
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Writer: Billy Bob Thornton
Genres: Drama, Crime
MPAA Rating: R for strong language, including descriptions of violent and sexual behavior
Box Office: $24.44 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Sling Blade is Billy Bob Thornton’s film adaptation of his own one man play, titled Swine Before Pearls, about an intellectually challenged man who is released from a psychiatric hospital after spending his whole life there since age twelve for the murder of his mother and her lover. The film stars Thornton in that lead role, named Karl Childers, supported by Lucas Black as Frank Wheatley, the young boy he befriends when he returns to his hometown, Natalie Canerday as Frank’s mother Linda, Dwight Yoakam as her abusive boyfriend Doyle Hargraves, and John Ritter as her gay friend and boss Vaughan Cunningham. The film received high critical acclaim and helped to launch Thornton’s career in Hollywood, earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Lead Actor and a win for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Sling Blade, though occasionally sad in its inevitabilities, is not a film that’s made for the cynics of the world. It presents Karl’s story as one of triumph and human connection, showcasing over and over how people want to be kind and help others out. There’s an implicit conversation about the upbringing of various characters that factors into this theme, but really it comes down to the audience believing that there are in fact good people in the world who want to connect with and help others out, expecting nothing in return. If you are a person who checks out of films where good people are depicted on screen or who needs every character in the film that you’re watching to have some dark side that lives just under the surface in order to think of it as realistic, then there’s very little chance that you’re going to like Sling Blade. It’s a film that showcases good people standing up to and facing down people who come from that more cynical upbringing, and it might be just too much to see care winning out over apathy for the “realists” among us.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
At the end of the day, it’s Billy Bob Thornton that makes Sling Blade such an excellent film. From his writing to his direction to his acting, it’s all top-notch. He’s given us a story about the everyday people who live around us, helped out in my case by the fact that I grew up not far from where the film was shot, but even without that, he gives us characters who have experienced and continue to experience the hardships of life but who choose positive human relationships anyway. Even the film’s villain feels like someone who just suffers from the unfortunate happenstance of being brought up in and living in an area where his small-mindedness never gets the chance to be called out, something still quite true of many parts of the world. Directorially, his style shows through in the ways that the film so often lingers on scenes without cuts, giving it the feel of a play like its inspiration, which works particularly well in his opening monologue, giving the audience that combination of unease and endearment that carries through with Karl for the rest of the film. Obviously, Thornton’s performance as Karl goes without saying as the icing on the cake, and he draws the best out of his counterparts on screen as well, not simply hogging the spotlight for himself, but using the spotlight that’s on him to highlight the other characters in each scene and give them a chance to connect with the audience.
Altogether, Sling Blade gives audiences a relatable, and generally positive, look at the ways we need each other to get through life’s hardships, highlighted by Thornton’s brilliant turn as writer, director, and actor, which earns the film its place among the greats. The optimistic take of a film that shows the best kinds of people might be something that many cynics take issue with, but those who find it uplifting are sure to enjoy the film from front to back. Currently, this film isn’t available to stream anywhere, but if you check out your local library or other physical media shop, you might be able to find it there.
