TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

denzil-09434 I'm not going to go in to detail. This movie is a moving study of the decency and beauty of ordinary people. I can hardly believe that I missed it on release. Billy Bob Thornton has been one of my favourite actors for many years but this performance simply blew me away. He proves himself in the Steve Carrell class of actors who can take on a character to the extent that you can't even tell who he is.One of the best movies ever made.

Parker Lewis Billy Bob Thornton does triple duty and he does so admirably as writer, director and actor. How he does it is incredibly amazing, and would be the gold standard template on being the triple threat to borrow a phrase from stage.John Ritter is impressive, and he's someone who we all miss. He really shed his Three's Company image in Sling Blade.

leonidas03031979 This film had all the potential to be one of the best of all time. But at the end it failed. Why? Because it was predictable. The first half was very emotional and substantial that it almost touched perfection. But after some part it was like you could see what is going to happen. And not only did it happen but it was almost forced by the most unnatural way. The step father was yelling to be killed like it was his intention. And honestly who ever stands so cool and self- possessed in front of his murderer who's moving towards him with a sling blade at his hands? The film itself gave me great expectations which collapsed soon. It could and should be better.

view_and_review 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.