Sling Blade

1996

Action / Drama

48
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 97% · 58 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 92% · 50K ratings
IMDb Rating 8.0/10 10 98410 98.4K

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Plot summary

Karl Childers, a mentally disabled man, has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, he is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.


Uploaded by: OTTO
June 19, 2018 at 03:08 PM

Top cast

John Ritter as Vaughan Cunningham
Billy Bob Thornton as Karl Childers
Lucas Black as Frank Wheatley
Robert Duvall as Karl's Father
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
695.50 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
2 hr 15 min
Seeds 13
2.36 GB
1264*928
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
2 hr 15 min
Seeds 41

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by view_and_review 8 / 10

You Ought Not Pass on this Movie

I remember first watching Sling Blade and thinking, "Oh no, here is a Forest Gump copycat." After all, the main character, Karl (Billy Bob Thornton) was mentally challenged and they were in the South. In reality, that's where the similarities stopped, but I didn't know that at the time. The second detractor for me was Billy Bob Thornton. I had only seen Billy Bob in one movie before Sling Blade and that was Bad Santa (yes I saw Sling Blade for the first time that many years later) and I thought that movie was dreadful, hence my impression of Billy Bob was also negative.

Sling Blade was a welcome surprise. Billy Bob did an excellent job with the role and of course I was doubly surprised to see that he had written and directed the movie.

Sling Blade was terrific in its simplicity. Karl was a simple man, he lived with simple folks in a simple town. That's not to say that they were without problems. Karl's mental handicap, Linda Wheatley's (Natalie Canderday) man issues, Frank Wheatley's (Lucas Black) fatherless issues, Doyle's (Dwight Yoakam) drinking problem, et al. For the simplicity of it all it was simply perfect.

Reviewed by philip_vanderveken 8 / 10

Probably one of Thornton's finest movies

I guess the main reason why I wanted to see this movie was because it was written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also played a role in it. Even though the man hasn't really been able to prove a lot with his work as a director, I must say that I almost always appreciate him as an actor. He's perhaps not the most popular actor in Hollywood, but in my opinion he sure is one of the better ones.

In this movie he plays the role of Karl Childers, a grown, but simple man who is released from the psychiatric hospital where he has been hospitalized since the age of twelve. He had to stay in that hospital for so long because he murdered his own mother and her lover, believing that they were doing something wrong. He returns to the town where he lived the first twelve years of his life and it doesn't take long for him to get a job as a mechanic, fixing all kinds of small motors at a local repair shop. In the same town he also meets Frank, a young and friendly boy who immediately seems to like this strange man. Soon Karl is invited by Frank's mother to stay in their garage, much against the will of her alcoholic and abusive boyfriend Doyle. While Karl's friendship with Frank gets stronger, the tension between him and Doyle keeps building up, until reaching its final climax...

Now that I've finally seen this movie, I can only say that it's too bad that I didn't give it a try earlier. Especially thanks to the magnificent performance by Billy Bob Thornton, this is a movie that is more than just worth a watch. But also the other actors like Dwight Yoakam, Natalie Canerday,... did a very good job. The entire movie feels very realistic, is quite sober and never tries to be too dramatic. This is the kind of movie that could have become very preachy, but it hasn't and that's something that I really appreciate. Add to this some good directing and you know that Thornton has done a very nice job with this movie.

This isn't exactly a typical Hollywood movie, not in its story and certainly not in its approach towards the subject. This could easily have become some kind of cheesy TV-movie, but Billy Bob Thornton has made a very good movie out of it instead. I really appreciated his work as a director, actor and writer in this movie, liked the story and was intrigued by the acting of all the actors. That's why I give it a 7.5/10, maybe even an 8/10.

Reviewed by classicsoncall 10 / 10

"You don't seem like you'd kill nobody".

"Sling Blade" is a film that takes you well outside the confines of your every day movie experience, and well outside your comfort zone as a passive participant in what unfolds on screen. Through the character of Karl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton), one is forced to examine one's own concepts of normal behavior and innate human decency. Because even though Karl is mentally defective, he has an uncanny ability to see through the clutter of disaffected lives and get directly to the point about what's right and wrong. I don't think I've ever watched a scene from a movie so excruciatingly heart rending as Karl's description about burying his newborn sibling. All the while, I couldn't help feeling that maybe there wasn't anything wrong with that baby, other than Karl's father not wanting it around to become another Karl someday. You put yourself in Karl's shoes as he searches around the shed where he lives to find a shoe box to serve as a coffin, and it's impossible not to well up and choke back a tear for all the inhumanity in the world that goes on day after day. Maybe that's a little more than Thornton the writer and director meant to convey, but that sense comes through nevertheless, at least for me.

And yet, there are times in the film when you just can't hold back laughter at the utter incongruity of it all. Like the time Karl tries to recreate the bathroom joke about the two guys on the bridge. Karl just mashes it all to hell as Linda Wheatley knowingly responds "I'll be dog". Well now, I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but I just couldn't help busting a gut over that one. Or how about young Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black) as he tries one last time to make an impression on his sweetheart crush. He knows it's futile, but summons the courage to bring her a cheap bouquet from the five and dime. Thornton captures the angst of growing up and trying to be accepted in such a simple scene and does it in a way that parallels Karl's own experience.

Now even when you figure out how the movie is going to end, the anticipation of getting there is what makes the journey compelling. The shock, if there is one, lies in the same matter of fact approach that Karl applies to his everyday life. There is not so much a pre-meditation about what Karl will do, but more a sense of what the situation demands to protect the family that has come to love and accept him as one of their own.

"Sling Blade" is a remarkable film. Without it, I don't know if Billy Bob Thornton would have even crossed our radar yet as an artist. But here, in one stroke, Thornton makes his mark on our consciousness with a bold and brilliant story that challenges our perceptions and makes us think, and that's a rare commodity today.

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