Movie Review Sling Blade

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Spoiler alerts 1996 Quite a long movie at nearly two and a half hours, this is a very well-acted and earnest but slow moving tragic drama. Billy Bob Thornton, who also wrote and directed the movie, plays Karl, a mentally disabled man who is released from psychiatric hospital when he is considered rehabilitated following a double murder (his mother and her abusive boyfriend) when he was just 12. Karl settles well in the new Arkansas community and gets work in a garage as he has a natural aptitude for mechanical repair work. He is however haunted by flashbacks to his past and in the relationships around him, history is in increasing danger of repeating itself. Karl is not some Halloween style slasher –flick monster, but a man genuinely trying to contain his murderous impulses. The story has a very John Steinbeck Of Mice And Men feel to it and Thornton’s performance is superb but it is over-stretched and rather slow paced, with lots of flashbacks to show the parallels between Karl’s past and present situations. As I watched it I quickly realized I had seen this one before many years ago, but that I had largely forgotten about it. Arthur Chappell