The Story Archive

Sling Blade

Billy Bob Thornton · 1996 CE · Film · Modern / American · Contemporary

Released from a state hospital after twenty-five years for killing his mother and her lover with a blade when he was twelve, a slow-spoken Arkansas man takes work at a small-engine repair shop and is befriended by a boy whose mother lives with a bullying alcoholic. He explains himself plainly to anyone who asks. Thornton wrote, directed and played the lead, expanding a short he had made from a monologue.

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