100 Movie Challenge 2015 - # 47: Devil's Knot

Director: Atom Egoyan

Genre: Drama/ Crime/ Thriller

Runtime: 114 minutes

Year: 2013

Starring: Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Alessandro Nivola, James Hamrick, Seth Meriwether, Kristopher Higgins, Amy Ryan, Robert Baker, Collette Wolfe, Rex Linn, Bruce Greenwood, Kristoffer Polaha, Matt Letscher, Michael Gladis, Stephen Moyer, Martin Hednerson, Ted Huckabee, Elias Koteas, Dane DeHaan, Kerry Cahill, Jet Jurgensmeyer, Paul Boardman Jr., Brandon Spink, Kevin Durand, Julie Ivey

Description: The savage murders of three young children sparks a controversial trial of three teenagers accused of killing the kids as part of a satanic ritual.

Review: “Devil’s Knot” is based on the book with the same name by Mara Leveritt. The author was inspired by real life events. The trial of ‘The West Memphis Three’ was the inspiration for both book and movie. Director Atom Egoyan decided to make it into a movie.

In 1993 three children were murdered, in a town in Memphis. After a few weeks the suspects were arrested. Three teenagers, The West Memphis Three, were caught and they were accused of using satanic rituals. They were convicted for the murders. The end? Not exactly, because a lot of facts were wrong and the police wasn’t thorough enough. The question is: are the teenagers really guilty? The movie is almost two hours long and this is simply not enough time to tell the entire story. It’s a complicated case and there isn’t enough room for the characters, because there are so many people involved in the case. Director Egoyan bit off more than he could chew.

Reese Witherspoon plays the mother of one of the murdered boys. She does a good job. She manages to show desperation and despair, but her character doesn’t really add anything. Colin Firth’s character has the same problem. The three suspects don’t get enough screen time, which is a shame.

Atom Egoyan tried, that’s a plus. He didn’t want to give us a boring history lesson. But the movie simply doesn’t work that wellm when the source material is so interesting. It’s just an okay film, which could have been so much better. Shame.

Rating: 2,5/ 5