Devil's Knot USA 2013 – 114min.

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Devil's Knot

Michael Lang
Movie Rating: Michael Lang

Thriller about three teens who are charged with murdering three boy scouts and acquitted 18 years later.

Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan is known for his powerful, haunting dramas. Loss and sadness are the main themes of his work, including his latest film. Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the horrible murders of three children, the so-called Memphis murders of 1993. The three victims, 8-year-old boy scouts, are found naked and hacked to pieces in a West Memphis ditch. Rumors soon surface that the children were killed as part of a satanic ritual. Three teens are eventually suspected of the crime. Private detective Ron Lax (Colin Firth), working for the accused for free, looks for evidence to exonerate them. Pam Hobbs (Reese Witherspoon), the mother of one of the victims, believes the three are guilty – until doubts begin to surface.

The Devil's Knot is an incomplete movie that’s neither fish nor fowl – it vacillates between TV courtroom soap and overdrawn melodrama. The intellectual, poetic magic that Egoyan has fascinated audiences with since his masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter is rarely in evidence here.

31.05.2021

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