Devil's Knot

 Atom Egoyan's film Devil's Knot dramatises the real life events that surround the trial of the West Memphis Three, who were charged with the 1993 murder of three boys. The topic has been subject to many previous documentaries and indepth analysis, so where does this film fit in?

On May 5th 1993, Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, three young boys from West Memphis, Arkansas, were riding their bicycles in Robin Hood Hills when they were murdered. After the police discovered their bodies, the suggestion was that members of a local satanic cult had murdered the children. Jessie Misskelley, Jr, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were treated as the prime suspects, and the film follows their trial.

Many have criticised this film for it's depiction of a story that has already been well documented, especially with the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy, and hence is of little interest to those who are already aware of the events. I, on the other hand, went into this with very little knowledge of the story and generally found it quite intriguing. I understand that it could be boring for viewers well versed in what happened but I personally never lost interest the whole way through.

Firth may well have been an unusual choice to play Ron Lax, but once you get past the fact that it's Colin Firth on the screen putting on what I found to be a fairly convincing southern accent, he really does give another of his great performances here. Reese Witherspoon, on the other hand, wasn't really anything special in this I found. Not terrible, just not great.

Some of the images are violent and quite confronting at times, but they do well to present the events and bring the 'thriller' genre in the film out. Crucial information surrounding the case is presented through informative subtitles that never draw our attention away from the action, although the final summarising of the events from the end of the trial up to the present could come across as lazy film making to some.

If you have previously learnt about the Memphis Three through other means, then this is probably not the film for you, but for audiences who are looking to understand these tragic events without watching three documentary movies, then this is quite a strong film that delivers the narrative effectively, thanks by and large to Firth's performance.