Release Year: 1996

Genre: Drama

Director: Billy Bob Thornton

Writer: Billy Bob Thornton

Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakum, Lucas Black, John Ritter

Mmhmm. We reckon you're here to read about Sling Blade, mmhmm. Some people call it Sling Blade, but other people call it…Sling Blade. Mmhmm. Because that's the title of the movie, mmhmm.

Ahem. Excuse us. We had something in our throat. Let's start over.

Hello. You must be here to read about the film Sling Blade. Written, directed, and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Sling Blade tells the story of Karl Childers, a man who committed a violent crime as a child, spent his life in a mental institution, and is suddenly released back into the real world. There, he finds a friend in a young boy named Frank, who welcomes Karl into his home. However, Frank's mom's boyfriend, Doyle, is a cruel man who makes Karl consider committing murder yet again.

Now you know what the titular sling blade is used for, and it ain't cutting grass.

While not as successful as the blockbuster Forrest Gump, another 90s-era film about a mentally challenged man from the South, Sling Blade made Billy Bob Thornton a household name. Thornton would win an Academy Award for Best Writing and Best Adapted Screenplay, and soon after, he would star as Bad Santa and, more memorably, start wearing Angelina Jolie's blood in a vial around his neck.

Hmm, maybe that's why vampire movies got so popular around that time.

Anyway, Sling Blade also features the late, great John Ritter, as well as Lucas Black in one of his first roles, as young Frank. Only fourteen when the movie was released, Black would go on to star in many of the Fast and the Furious things. Sling Blade is less fast and less furious and more slow and more laborious, but that doesn't make it a bad film. Just a different one.

These days, Sling Blade is remembered more for the character of Karl than it is for the plot of the movie, or the critical acclaim it received. With a unique haircut, a simple wardrobe, and a distinctive mumbling, grumbling Southern drawl, Karl was often imitated but never duplicated. Over twenty years later, Sling Blade remains a unique vision from a talented filmmaker. And we reckon it's still a mighty good film, mmhmm.

Ahem. We mean, it's great. Check it out.

Hollywood trends come and go more quickly than its celebrities join and quit Instagram. In the 2010s, we have superhero films. In the 2000s, it was vampires and werewolves. And in the 1990s, the hottest trend was intellectual disability.

Here are just a few films that tackled this issue:

• John Malkovich played Lenny in a version of Of Mice and Men in 1992.
• Leonardo DiCaprio played a young mentally challenged man in What's Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993.
• Tom Hanks played Forrest Gump, the most famous intellectually impaired man ever, in 1994.
• And the trend hit its low point in 1999 with Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi in The Other Sister, which Roger Ebert criticized as using "mental retardation as a gimmick, a prop and a plot device" (source).

As Forrest Gump might say, these movies are like a box of chocolates, and you never know what you're going to get.

These films often simplified their mentally challenged characters. Forrest Gump happily bumbled through football games, ping-pong matches, and the Vietnam War. Lenny just wants to hug you and squeeze you and call you George. Sling Blade, however, tackles mental issues by showing their complexities within the person himself, not just in the so-called "normal" people around him.

Karl seems simple on the outside. He has a bad haircut (like Forrest Gump) and simple coveralls for clothes (like Lenny). But inside, he is conflicted. The true struggle of Sling Blade isn't Karl vs. Doyle, who sees Karl as a "humped-over retard." It's between Karl and himself.

Karl can only express himself in monosyllabic words, grunts, and physical actions. Perhaps the perpetual grimace on his face isn't just Resting Karl Face. Maybe it's his outward frustration at being unable to express his inner turmoil. Sling Blade's Karl isn't one note. He's an entire box of intellectually challenged chocolates, and people can't look past the wrapper on the box.

Subtlety is easily overlooked, which may be one reason Sling Blade is all but forgotten today. Perhaps we'll see a Sling Blade resurgence, but who knows what kind of trend we can look forward to in 2020? Intellectually challenged superhero werewolves, perhaps?