Switchblade Movie Review: Uncle Billy's Personal Show

Speaking of Billy Bob Thornton, many people may not be familiar with it. This odd-looking middle-aged uncle can be described as an all-around Hollywood actor. Not only once attracted the goddess Julie to bend him, the most important thing is that he can make up stories and direct movies by himself. Just like the movie "Switchblade" he wrote and directed, Thornton not only starred in the protagonist Karl himself, but also won the Oscar for the best screenplay adaptation by his outstanding screenwriting talent.

Carl, played by Thornton in the film, is a middle-aged man with intellectual disability. Due to his unfortunate childhood experience, when he was 12 years old, he killed his mother and the lover who had an affair with his mother with a switchblade. As a result, Carl had to enter a mental hospital and received 25 years of treatment and transformation. After being discharged from the hospital, Carl worked in an auto repair shop in the small town under the introduction of the dean. Soon he met a teenager named Frank, and the two soon became friends of the year. Frank's respect and understanding made Carl feel the love of others for the first time, and he also wanted to do his best to help Frank get out of the predicament of being bullied by his "stepfather".

In fact, the elements that make up this story are so simple that it can even be described as mediocre: a protagonist who has never really entered society faces the impact of a new environment, and a single mother with a young child is violently abused by an alcoholic boyfriend. Facing each other, and the cautious life of a gay person in a conservative and closed town, etc. These are the clichés frequently used in previous movies, plus some compassion and sympathy for the little people, which makes "Switchblade" look like Nothing new at all. But fortunately, it is not just the plot that supports this movie. Most of the time, Thornton uses his unique aesthetic skills to deliberately weaken these supposedly strong dramatic conflicts. It is the movie itself that is most worthy of taste. a little.

One of the most commendable is that when portraying the horrible and bloody plot in the story, Thornton did not use explicit expressions to stimulate our sensory nerves. Instead, it adopts a cold-eyed attitude and uses a calm and restrained fixed-length lens to deliberately keep us away from the characters in the film. Although this adventurous approach made the film a little visually discounted, it greatly increased the tension and impact inherent in the picture, which shows Thornton's own ambition for the film.

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