Quite how you approach Devil’s Knot, and ultimately what you take away from it, will very much be determined by how much you know about the real life events the film is based upon. If you are familiar with the revered 1996 documentary Paradise Lost about the murders at Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis then Atom Egoyan’s dramatised account may offer little of interest; if you are not then perhaps it will introduce you to an intriguing unsolved crime.
In 1993 three young boys went missing while riding their bikes in the woods at the end of the street where they lived. When their bound and brutalised bodies are recovered from a creek local teenagers Damien Echolls (James Hamrick), Jesse Misskelley. Jr (Kristopher Higgins) and Jason Baldwin (Seth Meriwether) are accused of the murders as part of a satanic ritual. Defense investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth) is not convinced of their guilt and begins to discover several discrepancies in the case.
The question that must be asked while watching Devil’s Knot is “What are the filmmakers trying to say?” With the case being unresolved there is never going to be a satisfactory conclusion for most audiences but as has been proved by various Jack The Ripper dramatisations and David Fincher’s excellent Zodiac this is not necessarily a major stumbling block if the evidence is either presented clearly and cinematically, or a new theory is ventured.
With Devil’s Knot though neither of these is the case and what remains is a slightly jumbled narrative that ironically replicates the real case. As with real life suspects are offered and then ignored, areas of investigation are missed or not expanded upon, and anyone new to the case will be left more confused than they were at the outset. It could be said that the greatest achievement by Egoyan’s film is in being a marketing tool for the many documentaries and books that have been produced on the subject and that provide more varied and interesting conclusions.
There are good things here though. The performances are generally strong with Reese Witherspoon the pick as one of the grieving mothers in scenes replicated from actual news footage, and supporting roles from Stephen Moyer and Bruce Greenwood bring gravitas to key characters. Colin Firth, however, is woefully miscast in a role that doesn’t benefit from his casual style and Dane DeHaan is strangely reduced to what is little more than a cameo role.
The pacing of the film appears intentionally slow as if to give time for the gruesome crimes, which are unflinchingly described, to adequately sink in. This gives the impression that Egoyan feels the murders themselves are enough to carry the narrative through and that isn’t the case.
OVERALL SUMMARY
With any viewing there will be more questions than answers and while a documentary can retain interest through this approach it is not enough to sustain a film. With recent events and subsequent investigations and developments there was much more to be made of the case of the West Memphis Three. It is strange then that a filmmaker who in previous works has offered strong opinion has failed to do so here. Devil’s Knot plays very much like a made-for-television drama scheduled for an instantly forgettable afternoon slot and as such doesn’t do justice to the crimes against the young boys, and ultimately the devastation that followed.
