Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade

Pretty much everything has been said by previous reviewers here. It is probably pertinent to add that but for the success of this little independent number, the full length SLING BLADE most probably would never have gotten made three years later.

Obviously a labor of love for creator Billy Bob Thornton. He presents a markedly different Karl Childers here. As retardedly backward but infinitely more menacing. It was probably on reflection that the character was made more "marketable" and sympathetic the second time around. Both films are such an absorbing focus on what is essentially a simple man turned (by dint of social expectation) feral by circumstances totally outside his control. The villain of the piece of course was Karl's father, played in a marvellous one-off cameo by Robert Duvall in the feature-length film.

In SOME FOLKS CALL IT A SLING BLADE, the reporter is played by Molly Ringwald. Many seem not to have approved of her interpretation of the part, preferring the cutesy high-school reporter in the 1996 release. I thought she handled it well, after all she was dealing with a quite different "Karl Childers.'

Either way, this makes for a fascinating back-up to SLING BLADE. If anything, it adds to one's understanding of the man himself.

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.

Billy Bob Thornton proves himself to be great in this short independent picture about a killer who is released after 25 years in a mental home. This later was transformed into a longer version called Sling Blade which was released in 1993 to world-wide acclaim, but this is much better. Why, because technically, this is the beginning of the feature Sling Blade, and the beginning is the best part. Kudos to Thornton and director George Hickenlooper for creating a original short film that is as good as the hype. A+

Previous reviewers have commented (negatively) on Molly Ringwald's interpretation of the reporter. I have to disagree. I enjoyed it much more than the reporter in the full-length version (which is one of the greatest films of all times.) I didn't realize that the reporter was so weak in "Sling Blade" until I saw "Some Folk....". By the end of the interview with Karl, she (Ringwald) 'gets it' - she understands the horrific conditions that Karl endured, and why he did what he did, and she shows it, simply by the expressions on her face. I did not find this Karl any more menacing than the Karl of "Sling Blade" - I think it does show more the fear he has of leaving the safety and relative comfort of the hospital. Imagine how it would be if being in a hospital is a better situation than your only memories of life "outside". Long time prison inmates describe it all the time. This is a magnificent piece - where less is definitely more. I loved it.

Billy Bob Thornton's screenplay manages admirably to catch the inevitability of violence in impossible family situations. The question one might ask is: who has been wronged most? You simply can not lock up a child in a shed for years and expect it to act rationally. George Hickenlooper does well to restrict his staging to a cool minimum. The actors get more space that way. Molly Ringwald, J.T.Walsh and Billy Bob Thornton are equally good in this gripping short. Although I'm not certain whether I agree with Hickenlooper's choice of two-shot for the interview scene -B.B.Thornton shot the same scene almost completely in close up for his SLING BLADE; and to good effect- his decision to use black and white photography was a wise one. This kind of film is not a dime a dozen, it should be treasured.