Sling Blade begins with a remarkable monologue delivered straight to the camera. A man with a raspy voice, an overshot jaw, and a lot of pain in his eyes says he reckons we might like to hear his story, and so he tells it. His name is Karl Childers, he is retarded, and he has been in a state facility since childhood, when he found his mother with her lover and killed them both. But now, he says, "I reckon I got no reason to kill no one. Uh huh."

Karl is talking to a newspaper reporter about his release from the institution. They reckon he has been cured. They are probably right. He is not a killer, would not kill without good and proper reason, and now understands how, as a child, he misinterpreted the situation. As he talks, we are struck by his forceful presence; he is retarded, yes, but he is complex and observant, and has spent a lot of time thinking about what he should and shouldn't do.

If Forrest Gump had been written by William Faulkner, the result might have been something like Sling Blade. The movie is a work of great originality and fascination. Billy Bob Thornton, who wrote it and directed it, plays Karl Childers. He says that the character "came to him" one morning while he was shaving, and he started talking to himself in the mirror, in Karl's voice. He perfected it through a one-man show and an earlier short film.

Thornton is a former country musician turned screenwriter (he wrote the remarkable One False Move and A Family Thing). He plays Karl as a man of limited intelligence but great seriousness, who reasons as well as he can and feels deeply. There is pain, humor, irony, and sweetness in the character, and a voice and manner so distinctive he is the most memorable movie character I've seen in a long time. Uh huh. And the way the story of his freedom unfolds has a terrible fascination.

On his release from the institution, Karl is more or less at loose ends. He can fix most anything and gets a job as a garage mechanic. He encounters and befriends a young boy named Frank (Lucas Black), and senses immediately that the boy has a wounded spirit. The boy's mother, Linda (Natalie Canerday), has a good heart and offers to let Karl live in their garage. Karl soon understands the wounded look in Frank's eyes, because he meets Linda's boyfriend, Doyle (country singer Dwight Yoakam), who likes to lounge in the living room drinking one longneck beer after another and ruling the roost with loud, boorish opinions. His criticisms of the boy are especially cruel. It's hard to understand why Linda stays with the venomous Doyle; maybe it's a version of battered-wife syndrome and she can't imagine leaving.

One of the many pleasures of the movie is John Ritter's performance as Vaughan, Linda's boss and best friend, a homosexual who accepts his sexuality but seems apologetic about it. The character's complexity and sensitivity come right out of his small-town time and place. Only Vaughan makes life bearable for Linda and Frank.

These characters are brought to life with a vivid strength. We see Linda's life from the outside, through Karl's eyes, and we see it from the inside, through the eyes of Vaughan, who like Karl is only a witness, but feels the pain.

The movie's ultimate destination is not hard to guess, but we feel a certain satisfaction when it arrives. By then we have come to know Karl with a real understanding and fondness. As an actor, Billy Bob Thornton finds exactly the right way to play a character unlike any other in the movies, an original-and in creating him, Thornton has made a place for himself among the best new filmmakers in America.

-Roger Ebert Roger Ebert is the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Cast and Credits

Karl Childers Billy Bob Thornton

Doyle Hargraves Dwight Yoakam

Charles Bushman J.T. Walsh

Vaughan Cunningham John Ritter

Frank Wheatley Lucas Black

Linda Wheatley Natalie Canerday

Jerry Woolridge James Hampton

Karl's Father Robert Duvall

Written for the screen

and directed by Billy Bob Thornton

Executive Producer Larry Meistrich

Producers Brandon Rosser & David L. Bushell

Director of Photography Barry Markowitz

Editor Hughes Winborne

Production Designer Clark Hunter

Original Music by Daniel Lanois

Costume Designer Douglas Hall

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