Natalie Canerday | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

Who doesn’t love Bill Paxton?

Seriously, he’s just one of those actors. He’s appeared in a countless number of films and he’s played a lot of different characters. He was a psycho vampire in Near Dark. He was the underwater explorer who got stuck with all of the worst lines in Titanic. In Frailty, he was a father who was driven to murder by heavenly visions. He was the sleaziest of sleazes in Nightcrawler. And, of course, in Big Love, he was an unrepentant polygamist. In all of these roles, Paxton showed the quirkiness that has made him so beloved to film lovers like me. Much like Kevin Bacon, it doesn’t matter what role Bill Paxton is playing. You’re going to like him and you’re going to be happy to see him onscreen.

And yet, considering just how many popular films that he’s appeared in, it’s interesting to note that Bill Paxton’s best performance can be found in a film about which not many people seem to have heard. That film is the 1992 Southern crime drama, One False Move.

Actually, it does the film a disservice to refer to it as merely being a crime drama. I mean, it is a drama and it even has a properly dark ending to prove that fact. And it is about criminals and police officers. But ultimately, the film’s plot is just a starting point that the film uses to examine issues of culture, race, and guilt. In the end, One False Movie is an unexpectedly poignant and penatrating character study of 5 very different people.

We start out with three criminals. Ray (played by Billy Bob Thornton, who also co-wrote the script) is a career criminal, a white trash redneck who is not particularly smart but who is dangerous because he’s ruthless and he’s willing to whatever he need to do to survive. (If you’ve lived in the country, you will recognize Ray’s type as soon as you see him.) Ray’s girlfriend is Fantasia (Cynda Williams), a beautiful but insecure woman. And finally, there’s Ray’s partner and former cellmate, Pluto (Michael Beach). Of the three of them, Pluto is the most menacing, a knife-wielding sociopath with an IQ of 150. Even though he’s working with Ray and Fantasia, Pluto always makes it clear that he considers himself to be both separate from and better than both of them.

Ray, Pluto, and Fantasia have just brutally murdered 6 people in Los Angeles, all of whom were friends of Fantasia’s. Now, they’re making their way to Houston, planning on selling stolen cocaine. Pursuing them are two LAPD detective, Cole (Jim Metzler) and McFeeley (Earl Billings). When Cole and McFeeley come across evidence that the three criminals might have a connection with the tiny town of Star City, Arkansas, they call up the local sheriff.

And that’s where Bill Paxton shows up.

Paxton plays Sheriff Dale Dixon. Dale’s nickname is Hurricane and it’s soon obvious why. Like a hurricane, Dale never stops moving. He’s a well-meaning but hyperactive good old boy who has a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing. When he first talks to Cole and McFeeley over the phone, he amuses them with his enthusiastic bragging and briefly offends them with his casual racism.

Cole and McFeeley eventually end up taking a trip to Star City, so that they can investigate how the three criminals are connected to this tiny town. When Dixon meets up with them, he asks them if they could help him get a job with the LAPD. The two cops initially humor Dixon and laugh at him behind his back. When Dixon’s wife (a wonderful performance from Natalie Canerday) asks Cole to keep Dixon safe, Cole assures her that Ray, Fantasia, and Pluto are probably not even going to come anywhere near Star City.

However, Dixon soon reveals to the two cops that Fantasia’s name is Lila and that her family lives in Star City. What he doesn’t tell them, however, is that he and Lila have a personal connection of their own…

One False Move is a twisty and intense thriller, one that’s distinguished by strong performances from the entire cast. (Even Metzler and Billings bring unexpected shadings to Cole and McFeeley, who, in any other film, would have been portrayed as being stock characters.) But the film is truly dominated by Bill Paxton. When we first meet Dixon, he seems like a joke. We’re sure that he’ll somehow end up being the film’s hero (because that’s what happens in movies about small town sheriffs being underestimated by big city cops) but what we’re not expecting is that Dale is going to turn out to be such a multi-layered and fascinating character. Just as Dale eventually starts to lower his defenses and reveal who he truly is, Paxton also starts to reign in his initially overwhelming performance and reveals himself to be a subtle and perceptive actor. It’s a great performance that elevates the entire film. Al Pacino won the 1992 Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Scent of a Woman. That award should have gone to the unnominated Bill Paxton.

It wouldn’t be fair to reveal One False Move‘s secrets. It’s a film that you really should see for yourself.