Devil's Knot

The obvious question to ask is: why? After two decades, four documentaries and a massive celebrity-sponsored campaign, is there anything left to say about the West Memphis Three, the Arkansas teenagers tried in 1994 for the killing of three eight-year-olds and convicted thanks to intense public outrage and a corrupt legal system? This drama from once-great Canadian director Atom Egoyan takes a long time to tell us nothing we didn’t know. Colin Firth stomps about looking serious as Ron Lax, a private investigator assisting the defence, while Reese Witherspoon wrings her hands and cries a lot as the mother of one of the victims. There’s too much story to cram into one film, with the result that the three surly teenagers themselves – who would have made far more compelling central characters – are pushed to the side. And with their own legal team surely keeping a close watch, Egoyan and his scriptwriters are unable to point fingers in any meaningful way. A missed opportunity.