Late in the movie, the mentally challenged protagonist, Karl, goes to seek his father in his childhood home, and he finds . . . Boo Radley!  Well, not exactly -- he finds Robert Duvall, in a tiny cameo, but still, it's hard to shake the feeling that this whole movie, "Sling Blade," offers variations on a Radleian theme.  That idea had struck me even before Duvall appeared, so maybe in Billy Bob Thornton's mind, there was a sense of homage being paid.  The more serious question, though, is what to make of the fact, as it seems to me, that such a carefully, thoughtfully put-together movie doesn't quite work.  I say "doesn't quite" because a lot of it does, and because one can hardly fault the action and the cinematography.  The pacing is a bit deliberate -- but not even close to the point of ruining the movie.

What worked, I thought, was the representation of the family that took Karl in after he had been released from the mental hospital. Linda Wheatley (Natalie Canerday), a young widow, and her son Frank (Lucas Black) are poor whites in a small Arkansas town, clinging to respectability and both supported and threatened by the unstable and controlling Doyle Hargraves (Dwight Yoakam), a local building contractor who is in a relationship with Linda that is abusive, although to the movie's credit, there's nothing melodramatic about the representation of the abuse.  Young Frank hates Doyle, and Doyle makes clear that to him Frank is simply in the way and complicating the control he wants to exert over Linda.  Linda tells her son and Karl, whom young Frank has befriended, that she is "biding her time" before making an escape from Doyle (who has threatened to kill her if she tries), but the movie makes very clear, without making an explicit point of it,  that Linda's economic circumstances make any escape unlikely and that her talk of biding her time is just an expedient to keep her son from despair.  Frank and Linda take Karl in, and so Karl becomes privy to the household dynamic and its dangers to people he has come to care about . . .

All that is well set up, as is Linda's acceptance of the friendship of Vaughan, her gay boss at the local store where she works.  The movie's problem, I think, is in the conception of the main character, Karl.  In the conception, I say, because Thornton's acting of the role is impressively focused and detailed.  I know -- good actors playing handicapped people are pure Oscar bait, but Thornton is good here, and if the part isn't totally plausible, it's not the actor's fault.  Thornton also wrote the movie, and maybe the problem lies there.  A mentally challenged person is always going to seem "flat" to some extent, no matter what specificity of external gesture or manner the actor brings to bear.  Here, it seems that Karl is reduced to being a moral compass and I think it's hard to put on stage or screen someone who is no more than a moral compass.  Thornton has clearly worked hard to convey Karl's essentially moral outlook without making him implausibly articulate about it -- and there are perhaps only a couple of places where he misjudges -- but still, the effect of what I called the flattening is to turn the story into more of a moral fable than a drama.  This might bother some viewers less than it does me (the ratings suggest as much), and I do applaud the refusal to inflate the moral dilemmas with visual hyperbole or melodramatic action.  Apart from the actors already mentioned, John Ritter is effective as Vaughan, J. T. Walsh is creepy as a fellow-inmate at the mental hospital, and there's a very brief cameo by Jim Jarmusch.  Three stars says "Okay," and it's maybe a bit better than that.
Late in the movie, the mentally challenged protagonist, Karl, goes to seek his father in his childhood home, and he finds. . . Boo Radley! Well, not exactly -- he finds Robert Duvall, in a tiny cameo, but still, it's hard to shake the feeling that this whole movie, "Sling Blade," offers variations on a Radleian theme. That idea had struck me even before Duvall appeared, so maybe in Billy Bob Thornton's mind, there was a sense of homage being paid. The more serious question, though, is what to make of the fact, as it seems to me, that such a carefully, thoughtfully put-together movie doesn't quite work. I say "doesn't quite" because a lot of it does, and because one can hardly fault the action and the cinematography. The pacing is a bit deliberate -- but not even close to the point of ruining the movie. What worked, I thought, was the representation of the family that took Karl in after he had been released from the mental hospital. Linda Wheatley (Natalie Canerday), a young widow, and her son Frank (Lucas Black) are poor whites in a small Arkansas town, clinging to respectability and both supported and threatened by the unstable and controlling Doyle Hargraves (Dwight Yoakam), a local building contractor who is in a relationship with Linda that is abusive, although to the movie's credit, there's nothing melodramatic about the representation of the abuse. Young Frank hates Doyle, and Doyle makes clear that to him Frank is simply in the way and complicating the control he wants to exert over Linda. Linda tells her son and Karl, whom young Frank has befriended, that she is "biding her time" before making an escape from Doyle (who has threatened to kill her if she tries), but the movie makes very clear, without making an explicit point of it,  that Linda's economic circumstances make any escape unlikely and that her talk of biding her time is just an expedient to keep her son from despair. Frank and Linda take Karl in, and so Karl becomes privy to the household dynamic and its dangers to people he has come to care about. . . All that is well set up, as is Linda's acceptance of the friendship of Vaughan, her gay boss at the local store where she works. The movie's problem, I think, is in the conception of the main character, Karl. In the conception, I say, because Thornton's acting of the role is impressively focused and detailed. I know -- good actors playing handicapped people are pure Oscar bait, but Thornton is good here, and if the part isn't totally plausible, it's not the actor's fault. Thornton also wrote the movie, and maybe the problem lies there. A mentally challenged person is always going to seem "flat" to some extent, no matter what specificity of external gesture or manner the actor brings to bear. Here, it seems that Karl is reduced to being a moral compass and I think it's hard to put on stage or screen someone who is no more than a moral compass. Thornton has clearly worked hard to convey Karl's essentially moral outlook without making him implausibly articulate about it -- and there are perhaps only a couple of places where he misjudges -- but still, the effect of what I called the flattening is to turn the story into more of a moral fable than a drama. This might bother some viewers less than it does me (the ratings suggest as much), and I do applaud the refusal to inflate the moral dilemmas with visual hyperbole or melodramatic action. Apart from the actors already mentioned, John Ritter is effective as Vaughan, J. T. Walsh is creepy as a fellow-inmate at the mental hospital, and there's a very brief cameo by Jim Jarmusch. Three stars says "Okay," and it's maybe a bit better than that.