(1996) In a cinematic tour de force of acting and directing, Billy Bob Thornton, from his screenplay (adapted from his stage play) - entering the gothic literary landscape of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor - takes the role of Karl Childers. After spending a quarter century in the Arkansas state hospital for the mentally disturbed since he was twelve, Karl's about to be released back into the world.

Before he leaves he narrates in his deep, guttural, unemotional voice, often punctuated with "mm-hm," to a female college-journalism student - who asks the hospital's director Jerry Woolridge (James Hampton), "If he's so troubled, why are you letting him out?" - a summary of his life story: banished from his parents' house, living in a shed and sleeping in a dirt hole, fed and given Bible lessons, treated cruelly by other children at school (which he attended intermittently), one day he came upon his father's cruel boss's cruel son Jesse Dixon lying atop his naked mother.

Taking a Kaiser (aka "sling") blade (used for cutting highway weeds) he killed Jesse and then, when his mother complained that she wasn't being raped, his mother. Admitting he has no regrets and would do the same again, Karl answers the student's question - "Will you ever kill anybody again, Karl?" - in the negative, adding that he's learned to read the Bible some.

Riding a bus back to Millsberg, his former hometown, he stops to buy French fires from a gray-haired guy (Jim Jarmusch) at a Frostee Cream stand, voluntarily totes bags of laundry from a Laundromat for Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black) to the boy's home, telling of his having been in the state hospital for killing two people - "Well, are you well?" asks Frank, to which Karl replies: "I reckon I feel all right" - and returns to the hospital.

When Woolridge tells Karl he's a free man, Karl answers: "I don't know how to go about it." After asking Karl, "Don't you have anybody?" where he can stay, Woolridge takes Karl to his own home for the night (making his wife, adult son, and teenage daughter nervous) and ("going out on a limb") makes a personal referral, introducing Karl (a whiz at fixing small engines such as lawn mowers) to Bill Cox (Rick Dial), who owns a repair shop in Millsberg.

Working in the shop during the day and living in a shed out back at night, Karl quickly earns trust and respect; he visits Frank, who introduces him to his widowed mother Linda (Natalie Canerday) at the Dollar Store, where he also makes acquaintance with store manager Vaughan Cunningham (John Ritter). Seeing how fond Frank is of Karl, Linda generously offers to let Karl reside in the garage.

His neck canted forward, his jaw slightly jutting with lips pressed together, Karl doesn't appear to mind when people speak down to him or refer to him as a retard. Taking Karl to his secret place, Frank confesses that his father committed suicide, that Vaughan while queer is nice to his mama, and that he hates his mother's boyfriend Doyle Hargraves (Dwight Yoakam, reminding me of roles Bruce Dern formerly played), who makes him terribly nervous, so much that he'd like to kill him, to which Karl mildly reprimands the boy for talking that way. Frank likes the way Karl talks ("like a racecar idling," comments another).

At Linda's Karl's introduced to self-important Doyle, who takes control, bossing about others, before eventually losing control from inebriation. Physically and verbally abusive toward others, disparaging Linda's having "cocksuckers and retards" around (calling Vaughan "your girlfriend"), he's ordered out of her house after another night of carousing with his bandmates before turning savage.

At Vaughan's for a dinner with Albert from the funeral home, Linda, and Frank - earlier, wanting to see for himself that Karl really is the gentle, simple man he appears to be, not a threat to Linda and Frank, Vaughan had invited Karl to have lunch at a diner, where he said he felt emotionally kin to Karl, hating his father before getting therapy, then admitting to being gay - Karl's introduced to Melinda (Christy Ward), recent employee of the month at the store, also obese and mentally slow; they take a stroll together, and she brings him a bouquet of flowers the next day.

Frank takes Karl over to meet his make-believe girlfriend, Karen Cross, daughter of the town's dentist, whose upper-crust parents forbade their seeing each other, giving her Karl's flower bouquet. Following another confidential discussion with Frank at the secret place, revealing that at the age of "six or eight" his father had given him a prematurely-born brother to dispose of in the trash (instead he buried the still-breathing infant in a small box, which Frank finds abhorring), Karl returns to his childhood residence where he presents himself to his daddy (Robert Duvall), who says, "I ain't got no boy."

One night, carrying a hammer in his hand, Karl walks into Linda's bedroom where Doyle's in bed with her. Later he asks to be baptized. After Doyle decides to move in permanently with Linda (who repeatedly tells Frank she's just biding her time until Doyle gets tired of being with her), he lays down his strict law to the boy and orders Karl to leave and not come back.

Giving Frank his books, including his Bible and A Christmas Carol, Karl assures him: "We'll always be friends." He then asks Vaughan a favor of making sure that Linda and Frank stay away from Doyle at his place for the night.

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