Sling Blade
Short description
Karl Childers has spent most of his life in state care. Committed as a boy after killing his mother and her lover, he is released in middle age and returns to the small Southern town where he grew up. There he finds work repairing small engines, and his quiet, careful manner gradually wins him acceptance, including the friendship of a young boy named Frank and Frank's mother, Linda. That fragile calm is threatened by Linda's abusive, hard-drinking boyfriend, and Karl is confronted with how far he is willing to go to protect the people who have taken him in.
Sling Blade is a 1996 American drama, written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars as Karl. It was the first film he directed, ahead of All the Pretty Horses four years later. The cast includes Dwight Yoakam as Doyle Hargraves, J.T. Walsh as Charles Bushman, John Ritter as Vaughan Cunningham, Lucas Black as Frank Wheatley and Natalie Canerday as Linda Wheatley, among 32 credited performers. Producers were David L. Bushell and Brandon Rosser, and the film was made through Miramax and The Shooting Gallery.
Made for about a million dollars, it returned roughly 34 million worldwide, a large multiple of its cost. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from 94 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.5 out of 10 from 897 votes. A critics' rating of 8.5 out of 10 from 57 reviews places it higher than either audience score.
What's left behind the scenes
- The director's cut of the film has a runtime of 148 minutes.
- Film director Jim Jarmusch appeared in a cameo role as a local fast-food vendor.
- To remember to limp and do it convincingly, Billy Bob Thornton put shards of glass in his shoes.
- Billy Bob Thornton's directorial debut in a feature film.
- All the members of the unremarkable band in which Doyle plays are, in fact, successful and well-known musicians. Doyle himself is played by Dwight Yoakam – a country singer, songwriter, and actor.
- Harvey Weinstein, who held a high position at Miramax Films at the time, watched the first half hour of the film and agreed to purchase the rights to it for $10 million. However, Weinstein later forced Billy Bob Thornton to cut the film by 20 minutes.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
