Slingblade (96)

3/14/97

How JERRY MAGUIRE got the Oscar nomination while this slow, deliberate, nearly perfectly quiet movie didn't is beyond me. Karl Childers is about to be released from a mental institution after a long incarceration. He speaks very slowly, with a thick Arkansas accent. In a pre-credit sequence, he explains to a frail and terrified young reporter what he did to land himself in such a place. It seems he was banished to a family shed in the backyard. His retardation made him a target of ridicule by many. When he responds to his mother's screams and sees the town bully having his way with her, he grabs a large, curved, weed cutter, sometimes know as a slingblade and nearly cuts the man's head off. It seems he misunderstood the screams as his mother was a willing participant. This angers him further and he kills her as well. He was twelve years old. He takes his collection of a half dozen books, including the bible ('I understood some, didn't understand most'), and a book on carpentry, and tries to re-enter the real world. He has no family to return to but he tries to make it a go with a boy he befriends and his widowed mother.
The pace of this film can only be described as deliciously slow. Karl's speech pattern is responsible for much of this, but there's also something deeper. As Karl tries to keep up with the world around him, it takes him longer to complete thoughts. There are long passages with no dialogue--we patiently wait for him to understand. Often he does and often he doesn't. His brutal honesty is a change of pace for the small country town. Karl's childlike behavior is a welcome change in the movies. There isn't a hint of the falseness that plagued FORREST GUMP and almost creeped into RAINMAN. He finds simple delights in simple things. His belongings fit into a lunch bag and his biggest thrill appears to be the 'french fried potatoes' that they sell at the local Dairy Queen (staffed by Indie Stud Jim Jarmusch). There were many ways this film could have played out and it took one of those ways. I wanted to stay and watch Karl affect another so-called 'normal' person. Dreamy music by former U2 producer Daniel Lanois.
Billy Bob Thornton Dwight Yoakam The Omnipresent J.T. Walsh John Ritter Lucas Black Natalie Canderday James Hampton Robert Duvall Rick Dial Brent Briscoe Christy Ward Jim Jarmusch Music by Daniel Lanois Cinematography by Barry Markowitz Written and Directed by Billy Bob Thornton
40 Critics 9.1 Ebert ***^ Maltin ***^ Gleiberman A Guthmann 5.0 Addiego 2.25
~~Academy Award Winner for Best Screenplay for Billy Bob Thornton
~~Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor for Billy Bob Thornton
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