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10/15/02
Sling Blade (1996)
96
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:47
Fresh:45
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.3/10
Consensus: You will see what's coming, but the masterful performances, especially Thornton's, will leave you riveted.
Runtime: 2 hrs 37 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: After catching his mother and her boyfriend "in flagrante delicto" and dispatching both of them with a farm implement known as a sling blade, a simpleminded 11-year-old boy is sent to a mental... [More]
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Dwight Yoakam, John Ritter
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Reviews for Sling Blade
This riveting character-driven drama is a cautionary tale about the ways in which violence desecrates all life.
08/31/02
No review available.
08/13/02
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06/05/02
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05/09/02
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05/09/02
A masterpiece of Southern storytelling.
05/08/02
An abundance of long, flat medium shots that rob the film of intimacy and give it a sleepy pace.
05/08/02
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03/24/02
This may not make the film a party renter, but in a tired indie world of guns, goatees and slack urban romance, it's the razor-sharp real thing.
11/12/01
a Southern gothic tale of love and redemption that feels at every turn strikingly original
02/27/01
A mesmerizing parable of good and evil and a splendid example of Southern storytelling at its most poetic and imaginative.
02/14/01
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01/01/01
American films rarely depict the lower-class milieu as respectfully as this unsentimental drama.
01/01/00
Ambivalence reigns in Sling Blade. For every funny moment there is a shocking revelation. For every cute bit of dialogue interplay there is a disturbing recollection.
01/01/00
Sling Blade gives you plenty to think about, and neither the story nor the quality of the film can easily be forgotten.
01/01/00
There is a lot of rich atmosphere here, and Thornton's own central performance is riveting.
01/01/00
A real gem.
01/01/00
Sling Blade takes you down paths full of primitive, almost biblical implications, but it also finds comic relief in moments of palpable tension.
01/01/00
By its midpoint, however, Thornton has begun forcing both the film's poetry and the preternatural goodness of its simple-minded protagonist, and Sling Blade's sweet charms begin to curdle.
01/01/00
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