Devil’s Knot *** (2013, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon) – Film Review

Director Atom Egoyan delivers an honest, conscientious and compelling film dramatization of the real-life savage murders of three eight-year-old boys – Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore – in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993, and the subsequent controversial trial of three teenagers accused of killing the children. Known as the West Memphis Three, the teenagers were convicted of killing the three boys  as part of a satanic ritual and sentenced to life in prison.

Writers Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson base their compelling screenplay on the true story as told in Mara Leveritt’s 2002 book Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, a classic study in fear-mongering, mass hysteria, witch-hunt and prejudice, with a terrified community and gung ho authorities determined for a conviction despite lack of evidence. It’s a long and confusing saga, but Egoyan concentrates on atmosphere, character and tension, clarity, while cinematographer Paul Sarossy makes the film look like an atmospheric work of cinema.

Looking convincingly homely and dowdy, Reese Witherspoon gives an outstanding performance as Pamela Hobbs, the distraught mother of Stevie Branch, trying to get to the truth. Colin Firth overcomes his awkward casting as Ron Lax, the defence team’s pro bono private investigator, who wants to beat the town’s prejudice to get to the bottom of the case. In another surprise piece of casting, Alessandro Nivola makes a good job of playing Stevie’s stepfather, Terry Hobbs. Bruce Greenwood is splendidly bored and lofty and unengaged as Judge David Burnett, the original judge of the trial.

James Hamrick, Seth Meriwether and Kristopher Higgins are excellent playing the three hapless and hopeless teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. They catch just the right note of bewilderment. Dane DeHaan has disappointingly little to do as Chris Morgan, ditto Elias Koteas as Jerry Driver but they are useful presences nonetheless.

The film attracted a bizarre antipathy, based entirely on the idea that some film critics had seen earlier documentaries on the subject (West of Memphis, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills). It been misperceived as a docu-drama, when it’s really a study in paranoia and prejudice, as well as a profile of people under terrible duress, in the manner of Egoyan’s much-praised 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter.

Unlike in fiction, this honourable, well-intentioned film has an abrupt and unsatisfying open ending. This is because, in August 2011, after 18 years in jail, the Arkansas Supreme Court granted an evidential hearing and had a new judge determine if the new evidence entitled the three men to a new trial. On August 19, they were released after they reached an agreement with prosecutors. They gave ‘Alford pleas’ in exchange for time served and now they are working for a full exoneration and to try to find the real murderer.

Filming began on June 16 2012 in Georgia cities of Morrow and Atlanta. The courthouse scenes were filmed at the Bartow County Courthouse in Cartersville.

http://derekwinnert.com/the-sweet-hereafter-classic-film-review-769/

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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