Highly rated films from the past tend to hit more often than miss with me because there’s usually a good reason why they’re still remembered decades later. I’d say this one is an exception. Billy Bob Thornton delivered an outstanding performance, of that there is no doubt. But when I realized that this film is basically all him, he also wrote and directed it, I started to get queasy. Because this is such a dark and atavistic piece, it makes me wonder about the kind of mindset involved in creating it. In the end, Thornton got what he wanted as this project made him a superstar but this isn’t a film that I would recommend at all.

A longtime inmate in a state mental hospital in Arkansas, Karl Childers, is interviewed by a student reporter and in it lays out his life story. He is a developmentally disabled man who was abused by his parents. At the age of 12, he murdered his mother and her teenaged lover who also bullied him out of the mistaken belief that she was being raped. The title refers to the murder weapon which is a kind of bush clearing tool. The hospital’s director reluctantly releases him after the state deems that he is no longer dangerous even though he has nowhere to go. He arranges for Karl to have a job fixing small engines and to stay in the workshop at night. Karl turns out to be skilled at the job and is mild mannered so everyone likes him. He befriends a young boy, Frank Wheatley, by helping him lug his laundry home. Frank is being raised by his single mother Linda after his father committed suicide. They invite Karl to stay in their garage and are supported by Linda’s boss at the store she works in, the homosexual Vaughan. However Linda’s current boyfriend Doyle is violently abusive and detests both Frank and Karl.

This film grew out of a one-man show by Thornton and it’s obvious how it only exists to showcase the character of Karl Childers. The complete transformation Thornton made to get into character is astounding, his posture and gait, the pronounced underbite of his face, his manner of speech and verbal tics and so on. Thornton can be justly proud of his performance. Yet this is one of those films from an era when artists could freely exercise their imagination to create a mentally disabled character without referring to a medical professional. So Karl plays to the usual tropes: he’s dim-witted but surprisingly wise, he’s strong as an ox but gentle with children and so on. Most of this isn’t too bad except that we’re meant to accept that he has a strong moral core and is able to perceive the dynamics of the relationships between all these new people he has gotten to know despite his disability. It’s the kind of contrived, everything fits together too neatly kind of characterization that most films have moved beyond by now. I also find it disturbing that this was made two years after Forrest Gump. It’s like Thornton decided that Forrest Gump was too sickly sweet and so plunged his character into deepest and darkest abyss he could conceive of, and still have the character come out shining at the other end.

Situating ourselves within the context as presented here, I’m not certain that Karl is the hero Thornton wants him to be. The thing to note here is that every person in this film with the sole exception of Doyle is incredibly solicitous and kind towards Karl. He has no difficulty getting a job and a place to stay and everyone gives him the benefit of the doubt even after being informed of his past crimes. Yet these people are somehow unable to deal with the Doyle problem. Linda as an emotionally vulnerable woman doesn’t have the fortitude to break up with him. Vaughan as a homosexual man doesn’t have the manliness to stand up to him. So in order to protect Frank, it’s up to Karl to take measures into his own hands. That’s just completely the wrong decision to make in this situation given that there are plenty of people in his support network who could help. To our more modern eyes, it feels doubly bad as Doyle doesn’t come across as being irredeemably evil. Instead it seems to me that he is suffering from mental issues himself as his bandmates note how he is gregarious and friendly one moment and a complete asshole the next. What Karl does is therefore horrifying and only proves that he isn’t ready to be released into society.

Thornton’s performance remains impressive and there’s some value in its depiction of the American South, but on the whole this film doesn’t hold up at all. It’s an unrealistic story designed solely to make Karl look good in a horrible situation and doesn’t even succeed in imparting the moral lessons that it wants. Karl is a character to be pitied as shown here and the real failure is weakness of American social support institutions.