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Essay on Sling Blade

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Sling Blade

The Complete Review

This film by virtue of its independence has shied away from the usual hype associated with American movies. The result is an original screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton that is transformed into a mesmerising tale of the south. Thornton cast actors with ability rather than their image or ‘Hollywood status’. Sling Blade challenges us to re-evaluate our principles and our definitions of right, wrong and of justice.
Billy Bob Thornton plays a slightly retarded psychiatric patient by the name of Karl Childers, who has been in an asylum for the criminally insane for the last 25 years. As his name suggests, Karl Childers is a child-like man with instilled Southern Christian values and somewhat comical mannerisms …show more content…

Karl begins to tell his story under the soft light of the lamp. His story is accompanied by a strong and slow heartbeat. As the story is reaching its horrific climax, the heartbeat quickens, and with the last word of the story, the heartbeat now louder and quicker than ever, stops. The lighting creates a chilling moment in the movie. The constant use of lighting is most definitely contemporary noir.
Upon Karl’s release the music changes to a more cheerful harmonica and synthesizer representing his contentment with his new found freedom. Karl heads back to where he was raised in a small country town in Arkansas. Karl stops and rests outside the local Laundromat and notices a young boy by the name of Frank struggling out with the washing, Karl offers to take the laundry the half-mile walk to the house. Lucas Black gives a wonderful performance as an innocent albeit nervous boy who is having difficulty coming to terms with the suicide of his father several years earlier. Frank takes an instant liking to Karl and adopts him as a kind of father figure. Karl can see in Frank his own lost youth and innocence.
But the world is just too big for Karl so he returns to the hospital, only to be told that he is no longer allowed stay there. James Hampton plays Jerry Woolridge, the warden. Jerry is concerned for Karl and arranges for him to stay at his place for the

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