Long before Angelina, Bad Santa and the blues, Billy Bob Thornton won an Oscar for scripting this character drama, which he also directs and stars in.
Playing like the anti-Forrest Gump, it’s an ace slab of Southern Gothic about a man-child “retard” and convicted murderer whose rehabilitation into Arkansas society doesn’t go as well as hoped.
Over-indulgent in its bloated running time and portentous sense of inevitability, it works best as a showcase for BBT’s astonishing performance as the chin-jutting, raspy-voiced innocentturned- killer.
