“Devil’s Knot” has an astonishing story based in fact, but as a drama it fails to satisfy and it adds little of anything new or worthwhile to an already thoroughly traversed case. Its inspiration is a child murder case from 21 years ago: on May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boys went missing from their neighbourhood in West Memphis, Arkansas; the next day, their bodies were found in the woods nearby. A month later, three local teenage boys, apparently part of a devil-worshipping cult, were arrested for the murders, though they strongly professed their innocence. In Atom Egoyan’s film, private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth, sporting an Arkansas twang), a fictional character, becomes embroiled in the subsequent trial, strongly suspecting that the three accused are in fact innocent.
The case of the West Memphis Three has been widely covered since the trial in 1994, with countless news specials, documentaries and publications made over the years. Famously, there’s the extraordinary, in-depth “Paradise Lost” trilogy, and most recently, Amy Berg made a terrific investigative documentary on the subject called “West of Memphis.” Anyone looking to learn anything new about the case in “Devil’s Knot” is looking in the wrong place. As is anyone looking for an absorbing crime drama akin to “Zodiac:” sadly, the film seems more concerned with the inner workings of the trial rather than the people that surround it. What this really could have done with is a David Fincher type who’d give it a mood, a style, a drive and some insight into the characters; in the hands of Egoyan, it’s like a made-for-TV special airing on a Sunday afternoon. If you’re interested in the topic, do yourself a favour: skip “Devil’s Knot” and watch the riveting “Paradise Lost” instead; it tells the exact same story in much more depth and does so with extraordinary real-life footage.
Rating: 4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment