Review – Sling Blade

Normally I want to support low-budget indie film-making, but somehow I just never managed to find a way to get behind this one. For starters, I’m flat out not impressed by the whole actor-playing-a-mentally-atypical-character. I was also put off early on by the pace of the production, which can only charitably be described as laconic. But my biggest gripe was that I thought the whole show came across as a lower class soap opera. Carl (Billy Bob Thornton, who also wrote and directed) is occasionally likable in a mentally-challenged-person-who-may-be-a-psycho-killer sort of way despite his many cliché personality quirks. But for the rest of the drama, well, I’ve got several trailer parks within easy driving distance of my house. If I need to see this sort of meandering, drunken nonsense I can catch the live show anytime I want. That makes an art film version thereof more than a little superfluous. See if desperate