Sling Blade

Well! I watched pretty young horses of which Billy Bob Thornton directed, and partly produced a couple of days before this, of which Billy Bob Thornton both acts in, and directs this movie. I was shocked as to how different both movies are directed in terms of quality in my opinion. This by far was the better of the two movies. Maybe that was because he wrote it to? More power to do what he wants obviously made this much better quality of movie even though both are so different from each other.

Billy Bob acts as a simple minded middle aged man, who had been released from a (as his character puts it) a nervous hospital, and becomes friends with a young boy (played by Lucas Black, who also is in pretty young horses) Frank Wheatley.

Karl (BBT’S character) is given a helping hand by his Doctor finding a job, and although his employer allows him to live in the store, his young new friend, and mother allow him to stay with them, and from there the story opens up. 

I was so amazed in how Thornton acted in this movie, and his acting was so good I couldn’t even tell it was him. It seemed like he got so into this character that he could have genuinely been Karl Childers in real life. He seemed such a caring person, and although some may find him very simple he seemed to have a simple wisdom along with it. He seemed very humble indeed for someone who had killed at such a young age, and had spent so much time in a place like he had.

Lucas Black acted really well in this, and I am glad he was cast in this role. I must admit the rest of the cast where not really that powerful in their roles, but Robert Duvall’s short glimpse was OK. John Ritter of problem child fame wasn’t that impressive to me, but he did an average job. There was one really bad job of acting in my opinion and that was by who ever played Franks moms boyfriend. It was so bad I didn’t even bother to see who played that character in the end credits.

The movie played out pretty well, and I was glad the movie flowed well, and I didn’t once look at the clock to see what the time was because I was beginning to get bored. So for me to be able to to that was a good sign that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.