Devil's Knot

Image Entertainment | Release Date: May 9, 2014

5.8	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Ratings

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cigarilloredMay 16, 2014

What an astoundingly bad movie. What a waste of a cast. What an opportunity missed to take a genuinely compelling case and turn the spotlight on an appalling miscarriage of justice. Ok, so there's been numerous documentaries about the WestWhat an astoundingly bad movie. What a waste of a cast. What an opportunity missed to take a genuinely compelling case and turn the spotlight on an appalling miscarriage of justice. Ok, so there's been numerous documentaries about the West Memphis Three, good ones in fact, but this was a story ripe for the telling. It's a murder-mystery for Christ's sake -- any half-competent director could nail this. Instead he forces us to sit through the LEAST interesting parts of the story. Anyone who's familiar with the case knows that it's what unfolded AFTER the trial that constitutes the most fascinating part of this terrible tragedy. There are parallels here that can be drawn to Fincher's ZODIAC, another story of murder that became a tangled web of conspiracy, but Fincher knew how to structure his film. Devil's Knot should never have been a court room procedural. What's most telling about this film is that a good two thirds of the most interesting, compelling parts of the story (the subsequent revelations after the trial) are told in brief text flashed up on screen just before the credits. Woeful choices. Just woeful. Colin Firth, god love him, sticks out like a sore thumb. He mopes around, and his character has zero purpose other than to quietly simmer in moral outrage. Reese Witherspoon plays the mother of one of the children -- that's it, that's the extent of the character. She mourns her son, and that's all she gets to do. Again, just a waste of talent. Avoid it like the plague, and go and watch West Memphis Three.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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AydunMay 16, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's a good story/concept for a film. Similar to Innocent Man and a few other novels, but with enough differences to stand its own ground. Sadly, this film made me constantly roll my eyes with boredom and at cheap gimmicks to try to make you feel.

This is a 70 minute tv special stretched over double that time somehow with many scenes that aren't needed only for the majority of the conclusion to come via text after the movie has ended.

Reese Witherspoon was an overreach here as this role should have been much smaller than it was. A tighter focus on the investigation/scandal side would have made the movie flow much better.

The cast and cinematography were great. The source material for a true events story was compelling. The movie simply failed on terrible execution.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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