Devil's Knot Review
The Memphis Three case of 1993 was disastrous event
in the early 1990’s. If you are unfamiliar with the event, it went like this.
In 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys were mysteriously
abducted. The boys were found dead the next day, from brutal sexual violence.
The town’s religious community and police department were convinced that the
boys victims of a satanic cult due to the manner of their murder. A month
later, three teenagers named Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley
Jr. were arrested and charged with the crime. Misskelley, who was mentally
handicapped, confessed the murder after four hours of interrogation. The three
boys were quickly charged with the crime, despite vowing their innocence. The
boys hired top forensic workers to prove their innocence, but the judge found
them all guilty anyway, Baldwin and Misskelley were both sentenced to life, and
Echols was sentenced to death. It wasn’t until 2011 when their case was
re-opened and a new judge examined the evidence, and the boys were allowed to
walk free.
“Devil’s Knot” focuses on the story of the Memphis
Three. It has a great cast, which includes Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Dane
DeHaan, Mireille Enos, Bruce Greenwood and Kevin Durand. Sadly, despite the
great cast and interesting storyline, there is absolutely nothing that sticks
with “Devil’s Knot.” This is a criminally straightforward movie that takes away
all the tension, confusion and overall emotional drive out the movie entirely. Instead
of looking at a professional, Hollywood movie, this is a community theater
interpretation at best. The actors all seem determined to give good
impersonations of characters, instead of becoming the characters themselves. The
script by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson is a wallow. It is
completely devoid of the tension and excitement required to make a movie like
this special. The direction Atom Egoyan is completely misguided and without
merit.
Witherspoon plays Pamela Hobbs, one of the mother’s
of the missing children. While I have liked Witherspoon’s work in the past, she
was totally wasted here. It seems Witherspoon is just going through the motions
of a “concerned mother” instead of becoming a real character; nothing about her
performance is unique, nothing raising the bar on characters similar to hers in
the past. It seems Firth is trying to be equally boring as Ron Lax, a private
investigator brought into the crime. I have also liked Firth quite a bit in the
past, but he is also very much wasted in this movie and seems completely lost
in the film at times. Both Greenwood and Enos give some of the best
performances of the movie, but their characters are so pedestrian, so
straightforward, so boring that it is hard to register with them. Greenwood
plays the judge handed the case while Enos plays a West Memphis resident who
plays a big part in getting the teenagers convicted. Their actions are so
self-aware that Egoyan should have given them mustaches to twirl. They both
feel like cartoon villains more than actual characters.
If you like movies like this, then I suggest
checking out “Conviction” from 2010 starring Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell or “Zodiac”
from 2007 starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. Both films
also have to do with true stories about wrongful incarceration and unsolved
mysteries and both are much better in their efforts. It is possible for
directors to still milk suspicion, tension and excitement from a story that
could easily be research online or at the local library. That skill is
obviously missing from Egoyan. If you want something about The Memphis Three
check out the documentaries “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood
Hills” from 1996 or “West of Memphis” from 2012. Both do a much better job of
bringing the story to life and are much more insightful to this movie. That is
another big problem with the film, it doesn’t bring anything worthwhile to
table. It is just a lazy, straightforward adaption, featuring nothing concrete
and nothing I would return to again for pleasure.
FINAL GRADE: D
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