Devil’s Knot Movie Review

Devil’s Knot Review

Director: Atom Egoyan

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Alessandro Nivola, Colin Firth, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Mireille Enos, Kevin Durand, Stephen Moyer and Elias Koteas

I find it impossible that any filmmaker could make one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th Century feel uninspiring and distasteful at the same time. For all of the notoriety amidst the fact-based disturbing subject matter, and one that continues to shock and surprise to this day, Atom Egoyan’s DEVIL’S KNOT (based on the same-titled book by Mara Leveritt) comes as both pointless and perplexing after what has come before.

Admittedly, Egoyan was always going to be up against it. Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger’s acclaimed and exhaustive trio of PARADISE LOST documentaries, not forgetting Amy Berg’s more recent and equally unforgettable WEST OF MEMPHIS, surely meant there is little more we needed to know or could learn about the troubling true horror story. Some could argue that allowing dramatic licence would shed new light on the controversial case and bring it to the attention of even more. Although possibly forgetting that could well have had an adverse effect on all of the good work built, even if some claim that the film was written to us remind us that six families lives were torn apart that summer in Arkansas, and not only three lost to a life behind bars. Certainly screenwriter Scott Derrickson wanted that to be conveyed when I spoke to him about his script late last year. Instead, DEVIL’S KNOT feels like an intentional attempt for Reese Witherspoon to land herself another Oscar, and by roping in British fave Colin Firth to add a little more weight, we’re ultimately left with something bordering on shameful.

For those of you unfamiliar with the harrowing events leading up to the incarceration of the West Memphis Three (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr.), young 8 year-old’s Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and James Michael Moore we’re found savagely butchered in a muddy ditch on the Robin Hood Hills on the 5th May, 1993. Increasingly under-pressure detectives finally setting their sights on the three teens. A love of heavy metal music, wearing black and an interest in the occult seeing them perfect candidates to close a desperate case for a community baying for blood.

Witherspoon dominates the film as Pam Hobbs, whether throwing eye-rolling suspicious looks across the courtroom or perfecting her stereotypical “poor white trash” Southern drawl, assuring us it’s all about her in a tragic tale that had so many more victims. For a passionate investigator, who instinctively knew something didn’t smell right with the police’s inept inquiry, Firth is surprisingly lackadaisical in his approach to playing the legendary Ron Lax. As for the rest of the impressively starry and talented cast? Wasted. Every single one of them. That word “stereotypical” cropping up again. You have to question some of their motives for getting involved at all with so little for them to chew on. A possible trip down the red carpet come awards season? If there is anyone deserving of praise it’s Nivola. He at least offers something suitably complex to the role of Terry Hobbs, and with his character’s part in those events now coming under scrutiny, you can’t help but pick him as the stand-out.

Given that Witherspoon is one of those who fought for this part, the most offensive aspect about film comes with part of the final crawl: “Pam Hobbs continues to fight for the truth about her son”. For a project desperate to preserve the memory of those three murdered boys and remind us it wasn’t all about a miscarriage of justice, they neglect to mention that another two sets of parents must certainly feel the same.