The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Fund us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Cannes
      • Sundance London
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • Tumblr

  • RSS


CultureCinemaMovie reviews

Devil’s Knot

Devil’s Knot | Movie review
10 June 2014
Timothy Bano
Timothy Bano
Avatar
Timothy Bano
10 June 2014

Memphis, 1993: the bodies of three boys are discovered in the woods. They are bound and mutilated. The brutality and media coverage forced a flawed trial that convicted three teenagers, partly because one of them listened to Metallica and had an interest in the occult. Several award-winning documentaries were made, celebrities campaigned for the teenagers’ release. Director Atom Egoyan retells the true story in Devil’s Knot.devils knot

The film meanders through several phases. First, a quiet, ominous gaze at small-town life in Tennessee: Reese Witherspoon as Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of the victims, picks up her son from school. There are eerie shots of the dark woods where the boys were found, then the film shifts its focus to the trial, to the courtroom and to derivative scenes of Colin Firth as PI Ron Lax working through the unconvincing evidence.

Deliberately or not, the film is tense with inconsistencies. Shocking scenes of officers lifting the naked bodies of the children from a river are set against slow-burning sylvan scenes. Naturalistic acting by Witherspoon and the town’s residents is set against dramatic, expressive performances from Firth and the legal team. Egoyan tries to show the way that grief affects the family and tries to tell the story of the case and evidence – these two aims are at odds.

Witnessing the tower of evidence collapse under Firth’s scrutiny undeniably casts the police, the judge and the town’s residents in a really unfavourable light. Granted, Egoyan makes sure to show that they are under pressure, but this stems from a community of southern US stereotypes – beer-in-hand, spectacular mullets and moustaches – who are consumed by religious zeal and intense fear of Satan and devil worshipping. They equate listening to heavy metal music with cannibalism and murder. What makes the prosecution’s case seem so shameful is the way that contemplative Firth is presented as a hero, the defender of the defenceless teens who face the death penalty. “What if they did it?” his secretary asks. “Even if they did, I think three dead kids is enough.”

Firth and Witherspoon are as strong as ever and the film, infused with a sense of foreboding by slow camera pans and a creepy score by Mychael Danna, is brilliantly engrossing throughout. The audience adopts the role of the jury as we consider the facts and the fiction. But Egoyan is very much acting for the defence.

★★★★★

Timothy Bano

Devil’s Knot is released nationwide on 13th June 2014.

Watch the trailer for Devil’s Knot here:

Related Items1993boyscolin firthdevil's knotmemphisshockingtense

More in Movie reviews

Every Day

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Big Fish and Begonia

★★★★★
Chloe Sizer
Read More

Funny Cow

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

The Leisure Seeker

★★★★★
Daniel Amir
Read More

Let the Sunshine In

★★★★★
Euan Franklin
Read More

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

★★★★★
Euan Franklin
Read More

Truth or Dare

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

The Titan

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Rampage

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Tickets

Theatre tickets

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Hide in Mayfair: Dabbous raises the bar of informal fine dining with his new restaurant
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • Gregory Porter at the Royal Albert Hall
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Vaccines and Whenyoung at Alexandra Palace
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Tribeca Film Festival 2018: On the red carpet with the stars of Westworld season 2
    Cinema
  • Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Hinds at Electric Brixton
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Faceless
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Half Breed
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Hinds at Electric Brixton
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Half Breed
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Education, Education, Education at Shoreditch Town Hall
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Gregory Porter at the Royal Albert Hall
    ★★★★★
    Live music

Instagram

Something is wrong. Response takes too long or there is JS error. Press Ctrl+Shift+J or Cmd+Shift+J on a Mac.
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Fund us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • New London restaurant openings and pop-ups
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Subscribe
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2018 FL Media Ltd

Klaxons fool the web with 3D printed tour publicity stunt
We Are Many | Movie Review