Majikat
Having always loved the full feature film 'Sling Blade' and Billy Bob' transformation and convincing portrayal of this character, this short was a must!
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
This is a 25-minute short film from over 20 years ago written by and starring Billy Bob Thornton, who was still in his 4th marriage at that point and hadn't even met Angelina Jolie, his 5th of (so far) 6 wives. The director is Emmy winner George Hickenlooper and Thornton's co-stars are Golden Globe nominee Molly Ringwald and Emmy nominee J.T. Walsh. The latter is the only one of the trio who returned for the full feature movie that was loosely based on this short film. Hickenlooper and Walsh died very early. Thornton went on to win an Oscar for "Sling Blade" in the Screenplay category beating the dominant movie from that year: "The English Patient".Anyway, this short black-and-white film here did not impress me too much. I cannot say that this somehow motivated me to watch the full feature film. The performances weren't too memorable and I have to say I did not find the story really great or think that Thornton's character could make it into my all-time favorite villain list. He plays a murderer in a prison / insane asylum who is paid a visit by a journalist who wants to interview him. There is a problem with the journalist being a woman early on, but none of this was really a factor during the actual interview, which was really more of a monologue. All in all, I hoped this would be better. Not recommended.
Polaris_DiB
I think that when this movie was first written and produced, it was a very interesting character study. However, now that the narrative has been expanded into a full-length movie, it works more like an extra for those interested in seeing the development of the character over time.Billy Bob Thornton's imagining of this character is honestly one of his crowning achievements as an actor and someone working in movies. Sling Blade is a modern classic, and he portrays the character so well that having an earlier short like this is nice because the audience gets a chance to spend more time with him than just the feature-length movie.However, this short isn't produced nearly as well as the movie, and that doesn't necessarily have to do with the fact that it was a smaller budget, more limited production. The acting isn't all around as well-done, even by familiar actors we've seen before. The directing is kind of sloppy and only enough visual to pull off a narrative we can get into. All in all, Billy Bob Thornton is about the only reason to watch this film.There's also a sense that, though he had written it, Thornton hadn't yet completely figured out what he wanted this character to be. Afterwards he returned, and afterwards he created Sling Blade. This short seems destined to always be overshadowed by the majesty of the later work. I can live with that.--PolarisDiB
Andro-3
I'm going to have to go out on a limb here and say that I enjoyed "Sling Blade" far more than this short, which preceded the feature film by three years. Maybe it was the snotty, hands-on-hips, childish performance by Molly Ringwald that bothered me here. Or maybe it was the horribly stereotyped view of the residents of what, in the full-length, Karl calls the "nervous hospital." Yes, the short strongly resembles the opening of the full-length film, but I think it's weaker in many ways. The cinematography is better in the feature film (and I have no problem with black and white); Molly Ringwald's performance really sours the whole 25 minutes; and left on its own, this opening really implies things I don't like. Rather than actually speculating on how Karl will deal with living unsupervised, it seems to portray all the residents of the hospital as soulless victims. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel at the end of the film. At the end of "Sling Blade," I felt I had gotten to know a man. At the end of "Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade," I just thanked my lucky stars that Billy Bob Thornton decided to direct a version of it himself.
AD
