SLING BLADE (1996) – #ArkansasMovies, my celebration of movies filmed in the Natural State!

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I love watching movies that are filmed in my home state of Arkansas. We’ve had our share of big stars show up in the Natural State. Burt Reynolds, Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton, Robert De Niro, Dennis Quaid, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise and Andy Griffith have all filmed really good movies here. Martin Scorsese directed one of his very first movies in southern Arkansas. It’s going to be fun revisiting some of my favorite Arkansas movies and sharing them with you!

I live out in the country in Saline County, Arkansas. Back in 1996, Billy Bob Thornton wrote, directed and starred in a little film made right here called SLING BLADE (1996). It’s one of my favorite movies. Here’s a picture of our son and daughter sitting at the same table at Garry’s Drive-In Diner where Billy Bob Thornton and John Ritter sat in the movie.

Thornton stars as Karl Childers, a developmentally disabled man who was abused as a child by his parents and the other children in the community. At the age of 12, he murdered his mom and her teenage lover Jessie Dixon with a sling blade. After 30 years in the mental hospital, the state decides he’s no longer dangerous, so they give him his stack of books and send him on his way. Karl has no clue of how to get on with his life, but the administrator of the hospital (James Hampton) helps him get a job as a small engine mechanic in his hometown. Hanging out at the laundromat one day, Karl meets a boy named Frank (Lucas Black) and helps him carry his bags of clothes back to his house. The two become friends and start hanging out a lot together. Frank introduces Karl to his mom, Linda (Natalie Canerday), and her gay best friend and boss, Vaughan (John Ritter). Karl also meets Linda’s abusive and alcoholic boyfriend, Doyle (Dwight Yoakam). Karl grows to love Frank and Linda. When he witnesses a drunk Doyle’s abusive and threatening behavior towards Frank and Linda one night, Karl starts thinking that Doyle may really hurt his friends someday. He decides he’s going to make sure that can never happen.

First and foremost, I love SLING BLADE because of Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as Karl Childers. He had been developing the character of Karl for many years before the movie was made. He loved pulling “Karl” out when he was just hanging out and goofing around with his friends. He based his character on bits and pieces of so many different people in his life. As a native Arkansan, many of the words he says and the way he says them reminds me of different people I’ve known over the years. His opening monologue where he describes the murders of his mother and the young Jessie Dixon is a masterpiece in and of itself. Thornton created a truly unique character, and that’s extremely rare these days. It’s a performance for the ages and continues to inspire terrible imitations to this day!

The remainder of the cast in SLING BLADE is so good and natural. Lucas Black is phenomenal as Frank. Billy Bob Thornton has been asked how he got such a great performance from the then 12-year-old boy from Alabama. He says he didn’t get that performance; that’s just the kind of actor Lucas Black is. The relationship between Karl and Frank is the key to the film working, and Black is perfect. Natalie Canerday is excellent as Frank’s mom, Linda. She’s from Russellville, Arkansas, so her accent is authentic, and she just blends perfectly into the film. John Ritter provides a very solid supporting performance as Linda’s gay friend who cares deeply for her and Frank. Thornton was part of the cast of Ritter’s early 90’s sitcom with Markie Post called HEARTS AFIRE. He actually wrote this screenplay while working on the show. The two were great friends off camera and Ritter actually worried that he wouldn’t be able to give a serious performance opposite Thornton’s portrayal of Karl. And then there’s country music superstar Dwight Yoakam as the abusive bully Doyle Hargraves. He’s simply great in the film. He doesn’t just portray Doyle as a monster either. There are many people in this world like Doyle Hargraves, and Yoakam is able to capture that. Director Jim Jarmusch has a memorable cameo in the film. He sells Karl his “french fried potaters.” And the great Robert Duvall even makes a short appearance in the film as Karl’s dad. Duvall was over in the Memphis area filming his own movie A FAMILY THING, which was written by Thornton. He just made the 2 hour drive over for the day and filmed his scene.

Every scene filmed in SLING BLADE is filmed here in Benton and Saline County. The opening and closing scenes between Thornton and actor J.T. Walsh at the “nervous hospital” were filmed at the old Benton Services Center, which is now a psychiatric nursing home just outside of Benton. I’ve driven by the location of the home where Linda and Frank lived. I drive by the laundromat where Karl meets Frank every time I go eat at Garry’s Sling Blade Drive-in. I’ve driven out to the bridge over the Saline River that is prominently featured in the film (see picture below). Heck, I even went to college at the University of Central Arkansas with one of the young ladies who interview Karl at the beginning of the film. I love this movie, and I’m so proud that it was filmed in my backyard.

SLING BLADE is an incredible film with a truly unique character at its center. The film is at times funny, heartbreaking, violent, slow, awkward, dramatic, and thrilling. It’s a resounding success for Billy Bob Thornton as a director, actor, and writer, even winning him an Oscar for his screenplay. I give this film my highest recommendation.

I’ve included the trailer for SLING BLADE below:

Past reviews in the #ArkansasMovies series include:

WHITE LIGHTNING – #ArkansasMovies, my celebration of movies filmed in the Natural State!

Guilty Pleasure No. 59: Teen Wolf (dir by Rod Daniel)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1985, Teen Wolf is a bit of an odd film.

Michael J. Fox is Scott Howard, a 17 year-old high student in Nebraska. There’s nothing special about Scott. He plays on the school’s lousy basketball team. He has a crush on the most popular girl in school, even though she barely seems to know that he’s alive. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that his lifelong best friend, Boof (Susan Ursitti), is totally crushing on him. His parents are clueless to Scott’s angst. Maybe the only thing that Scott has going for him is that he is friends with the coolest kid in school, Stiles (Jerry Levine). How cool is Stiles? He’s so cool that his name is Stiles! Actually, to be hones, Stiles seems just as dorky as Scott but this is an 80s film so who am I to argue with the film’s argument that everyone wants to hang out with Stiles?

Then, one night, Scott discovers that he has inherited the family “curse.” He’s a werewolf! But, on the plus side, he’s a really popular werewolf. Everyone at school loves the werewolf. The popular girls want to date the werewolf. Everyone loves seeing the werewolf van surfing. And, even more importantly, the werewolf is really good at basketball! It’s weird because the Werewolf is just as short as Scott was but apparently, being a wolf makes you good at basketball. You have to wonder why the other teams wouldn’t protest having to play against a werewolf. I would be worried that the werewolf would get mad if it missed a shot and kill everyone on the court.

Anyway, Scott is popular but he soon learns that popularity is empty, regardless of whether you’re a werewolf or not. He also realizes the Boof is the girl that he should be going out with but Boof only wants to date Scott. She doesn’t want to date the werewolf. Will Scott find the courage to go to the school dance as himself?

This is a pretty stupid movie but Michael J. Fox brings a lot of heart to the role of Scott and his romance with Boof (who really needs a better nickname) is actually rather sweet. The highlight of the film are Scott’s interaction with his supportive but nerdy father (played by James Hampton). There are a lot jokes that fall flat and the plot never makes much sense but the film itself so amiably dumb that it’s hard not to kind of like it. That said, don’t ever try to surf on top of the van. Werewolf or not, that looks dangerous!

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988, directed by Alan Myerson)

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Police Academy 5 starts as so many Police Academy films have started. Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) is getting progressively more loopy and Captain Harris (G.W. Bailey) is plotting to take over the Academy. This time, Harris thinks that he has come up with the perfect plan when he discovers that Lassard has reached the mandatory retirement age.

With retirement looming, Lassard attends one final law enforcement convention in Miami. At the convention, Lassard is to be honored as “Police Officer of the Decade” because it was apparently a very slow decade. Lassard decides to bring along his favorite academy graduates so that they can celebrate with him and meet his nephew, Sgt. Nick Lassard (Matt McCoy, who you may recognize as Seinfeld’s Lloyd Braun or maybe as the spokesman for Hartford Insurance). The commandant invites Sound Effects Guy (Michael Winslow), Tackleberry (David Graf), Hightower (Bubba Smith), Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Callhan (Leslie Easterbrook), and House (Tab Thacker). Notice who isn’t there? This was the first Police Academy film without Steve Guttenberg’s Carey Mahoney and Commandant Lassard celebrating his career without inviting his most loyal graduate doesn’t seem right.

Once what is left of the old gang arrives in Miami, they get caught up in the usual Police Academy shenanigans. Rene Auberjonois plays a jewel thief who accidentally switches bags with the Commandant and who has 24 hours to retrieve the stolen diamonds. It’s Florida so there are women in bikinis and an Everglades boat chase. Harris gets humiliated in every way possible. The jokes are even more juvenile than usual. Nick Lassard uses sunscreen to permanently label Harris as being a “dork” so everyone on the beach calls Harris a “dork.” That’s as sophisticated as things get.

Unfortunately, there’s a Steve Guttenberg-shaped hole at the center of Police Academy 5 and not even as formidable a thespian as Matt McCoy can fill it. Even though Guttenberg always seemed like he was miscast as both a cop and a former juvenile delinquent, Police Academy 5 shows how important he really was to the franchise. Mahoney was the closest thing that the Police Academy films had to a fully developed character and, without him around, it’s even more obvious how thinly drawn all of the other characters were. (Guttenberg was filming Three Man And A Baby while Police Academy 5 was in production though, in an A.V. Club interview a few years ago, Guttenberg said the real reason he wasn’t invited to Miami Beach was because the producers couldn’t afford to pay his salary. “You’ve got to get paid!” Guttenberg explained.)

I will, however, give Police Academy 5 some credit. Rene Auberjonois does what he can with his bumbling jewel thief and the scene where Tackleberry pulls a gun on a shark made me laugh. Otherwise, Police Academy 5 is no Police Academy 3.

Tomorrow, it’s time for … you guessed it! …. Police Academy 6!

Smashmouth Football: Burt Reynolds in THE LONGEST YARD (Paramount 1974)

Posted on September 8, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Dedicated to the memory of Burt Reynolds (2/11/1936-9/6/2018)

If it was producer Albert Ruddy’s idea to team macho actor Burt Reynolds with macho director Robert Aldrich for THE LONGEST YARD, then the man’s a bloody genius (Ruddy was no stranger to machismo himself, having previously produced THE GODFATHER)! This testosterone-fueled tale of an ex-NFL star turned convict, forced to assemble a football team of hardened criminals to take on the sports-mad warden’s goon squad of guards, is one of Burt’s best vehicles, and a comeback of sorts for Aldrich, who hadn’t scored a hit since 1967’s THE DIRTY DOZEN . Both men hit the end zone with this sports-themed film, and led the way for an onslaught of football films to come.

Former star quarterback Paul Crewe (Reynolds), who was thrown out of the NFL in a points shaving scandal, finds himself under arrest after fighting with his girlfriend, stealing…

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A Movie A Day #10: The Longest Yard (1974, directed by Robert Aldrich)

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Once, Paul “Wrecking” Crewe (Burt Reynolds) was a superstar NFL quarterback. That was until he was caught up in a point-shaving scandal and kicked out of the league. When a drunk Crewe steals his girlfriend’s car, gets into a high-speed police chase, and throws a punch at a cop, he ends up sentenced to 18 months at Citrus State Prison.

The warden of the prison, Rudolph Hazen (Eddie Albert), is a football fanatic who, at first, is excited to have Crewe as an inmate. The prison guards have a semi-pro football game and Hazen wants Crewe to coach the team and help them win a national championship. Though initially reluctant and just wanting to do his time, Crewe relents after witnessing and experiencing the cruelty of the prison system. Crewe forms The Mean Machine, a team made up of prisoners, and agrees to play an exhibition game against the guards.

At first, the members of the Mean Machine are just looking for an excuse to hit the guards without being punished but soon, they realize that they have a chance to win both the game and their dignity. But Hazen is not above blackmailing Crewe to throw the game.

When it comes to understanding the Tao of Burt, The Longest Yard is the place to start. Starting with a car chase and ending with near martyrdom, The Longest Yard is the ultimate Burt Reynolds film. Paul Crewe ranks alongside Deliverance’s Lewis Medlock and Boogie Night‘s Jack Horner as Reynolds’s best performance. Before injuries ended his athletic career, Reynolds was a college football star and, on the prison’s playing field, he holds his own with the large group of former professional football players who were cast to play the guards and the prisoners. The Longest Yard’s climatic football game takes up over an hour of screen time and reportedly, the action was largely improvised during shooting. Unlike most movie football games, the one in The Longest Yard looks and feels like a real game.

The Longest Yard was directed by Robert Aldrich, who specialized in making movies about anti-authoritarians fighting the system. The scenes of Crewe recruiting and training The Mean Machine are very reminiscent of Aldrich’s best-known movie, The Dirty Dozen. With its combination of dark humor, graphic violence, rebellious spirit, and Southern-friend melodrama, The Longest Yard is a movie that could only have worked in the 1970s. The Adam Sandler remake may have made a lot of money at the box office but it still comes nowhere close to matching the original.

For tomorrow’s movie a day, it’s the best film of 2016, which also happens to be about a football player in prison.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #49: Hustle (dir by Robert Aldrich)

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing our journey into the dark Hell of the 1970s, we now take a quick look at the 1975 cop film, Hustle.

Taking place in Los Angeles, Hustle tells the story of several different people who find their lives intertwined in the desperate dance of existence. (Does that sound overdramatic? Well, that’s the type of film that this is.)

There’s Leo Sellers (Eddie Albert), a lawyer with bright rosy cheeks and a friendly manner. You look at Leo and you automatically assume that he must be a nice guy, the type of guy who puts on a fake beard and plays Santa Claus down at the local orphanage. But actually, Leo is a lawyer for the mob. He’s gotten rich through crime and his mansion hides all sorts of secrets. He also has a weakness for violently abusing prostitutes.

Speaking of prostitutes, one of Leo’s favorite is Nicole (Catherine Deneuve), an icy French beauty who survives by holding the world at a distance. Though Nicole doesn’t like Leo, she has to keep him happy because Leo could easily arrange for her to be deported back to France.

Nicole is also the girlfriend of Phil Gaines (Burt Reynolds), a cynical homicide detective who, like her, tries to keep the world at a distance. Phil is obsessed with old films and frequently speaks of how much he wishes the real world could be like a movie. Throughout the film, he talks about eventually moving to Rome.

Phil’s partner is Louis Belgrave (Paul Winfield), who is not quite as cynical as Phil but who is definitely getting there. Whereas Phil is always talking about how much the world has disappointed him, Louis mostly accepts things without complaint. He just wants to do his job and go home at the end of the day.

Phil and Louis’s boss is Santoro (Ernest Borgnine, giving a typical Ernest Borgnine performance). Santoro is not a bad guy but, in order to hold onto his job, he has to keep powerful men like Leo Sellers happy.

Santoro also has to deal with the complaints of people like the Hollingers. Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson) is a veteran of the Korean War and handles the world in a gruff and suspicious manner. Paula (Eileen Brennan) is Marty’s wife and, as a result of his emotional distance, has recently started having an affair.

And then there’s Gloria (Colleen Brennan), Marty and Paula’s daughter. Gloria ran away from home a while ago and soon found herself working as a stripper, a porn actress, and eventually as a prostitute. When Gloria is found dead, Phil and Louis get the case. It’s obvious to them that Gloria committed suicide. It’s not so obvious to Marty, who is convinced that his daughter was murdered and, disgusted by Phil’s cynical attitude, sets out to investigate the case on his own.

One of the more interesting things about Hustle is that really is no murder mystery. Despite what Marty believes, Gloria really did commit suicide. Marty’s insistence that she was murdered has more to do with his guilt over being a bad father than it does with any real evidence. As Marty investigates his daughter’s life, he is exposed to a sordid world of strip clubs and prostitution. He discovers that Gloria’s clients included many powerful men and he decides that the last client she saw must have murdered Gloria.

That client is Leo Sellers. And while Leo may not have murdered Gloria, he is willing to kill Marty to keep his secret life from being exposed. Phil and Louis are forced to choose between remaining detached or protecting Marty from himself.

And, since this film was made in the 70s, it all ends on a really dark note!

Hustle shows up on Encore occasionally. It’s a strange film to watch, as it alternates between being a fairly predictable cop film and being a portrait of existential dread. The movie doesn’t really work; it’s too long, it features some amazingly pretentious dialogue, and Reynolds, Winfield, and Deneuve all seem to be bored with their characters. Probably the film’s best performance comes from Ben Johnson. I imagine that has to do with the fact that Johnson is playing the only character who behaves in a fairly consistent way.

And yet, if you’re like me and you’re fascinated with the nonstop fatalism of 70s cinema, Hustle does have some historical value. It’s one of those films that you watch and you wonder how anyone survived the 1970s!