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One thing changes the whole idea behind the character of 'Karl'...

posted 9 years ago by MikeDopeLess
32 replies | jump to latest

Karl is portrayed to be this simple, slow, but good-hearted human being who has had a sad and rough life. He committed this horrible crime when he was a kid, but the murders that happened were a result of Karl walking in on a disturbing situation (his mother having sex with another man). So I took it as Karl reacted to what he was seeing and he he immediately took action and murdered his mother and this man.

Now fast forward to the end of the movie **Spoiler** where he has made a distinct decision to kill Doyle. That means that he took the time to think about it, whether he wayed the pros and cons, played different situations out in his head or not; he eventually came to the conclusion that he MUST kill this man in order to save the people he loved. To me, this just changes the character of Karl a little bit. If he had walked in on Doyle beating Frank or his mom, then I would have understood his motivation a lot more, it would have just made more sense to me. I know earlier in the day Karl saw Doyle put his hands on Frank, but Karl took action there and told Doyle not to do it again. There was no other event that sparked Karl's rage and violence.

I just always thought Karl reacted to a horrible situation when he was young, but he later learned that it was a "bad" decision and that he shouldnt have killed them. Maybe Im wrong, but it's just what I felt while watching it for the first time front to back...

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[–] romefan123 9 years ago

Good analysis...it was premeditated, which, is less excusable in some respects than the "crime of passion". Yet..we as viewers still see Karl as a good man, capable of love and compassion. One of the taglines of the movie is (paraphrasing) "Heroes come in the most unusual places" or something like that. Is Karl's act heroic? In some context, I think yes. He saves Frankie from the next few years of hell, and possibly doing it himself when he's 16, 17...leading to a life of violence and possible prison. He sacrifices himself for Frankie, which to me, is heroic.

"You can just stand there and let him kick your ass!" Karate Kid III

[–] MikeDopeLess 9 years ago

Oh yea I totally agree with you, Karl is the sacrificial hero of the film, and we are supposed to like him. I loved the character of Karl. I was just saying that the idea of Karl planning to murder Doyle sort of changes our perception as to who Karl really is...is he smarter than we thought? (Because he obviously took the time to think about what he was doing) is he more mature than we thought?...It was just something I immediately picked up on when I watched it. But yea good point.

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[–] bhoover247 9 years ago

Karl is no hero. He murdered a person basically because he was an a**hole. There's nothing heroic about that. It teaches Frank that the way to deal with a person who is mean or cruel is to murder him. What a warped message to give to a young boy. Frank and Linda's life will not be positively impacted by cold blooded murder.

[–] romefan123 9 years ago

Is it any less warped than having to tolerate his assholishness, as he calls it, and possible physical abuse? Think this saves Frankie from having to do the job himself. And then, where would that leave him?

Not suggesting vigilante justice is appropriate for every case, but this is a movie, and we can sort of look at it from an outside view. Who's complicit in all of this, of course, is Linda the mother. She should not have put her child in this mix. If she wants to be pushed around by a redneck hillbilly, that's her business. But wait until the boy is out of the house.

"You can just stand there and let him kick your ass!" Karate Kid III

[–] bhoover247 9 years ago

What makes you think that Linda is going to do anything different after Karl's "heroic" action. She will shack up with some other redneck hillbilly, the only difference is the trauma of the boy coming home every day thinking about the swimming pool of blood they saw in the den.

[–] docweaselband 8 years ago

Totally agree. The first time I watched this movie I was disgusted by the weakness of the mother's character and the utter selfishness, especially when she takes Doyle back and agrees to let him MOVE IN.

They don't show the epilogue, but I imagine the mother's character would have blamed Karl and thought it mad she ever let her son around a maniac like him (good point, actually, and more of her malfeasance) instead of seeing the truth that her inability to "be alone", even at the expense of her son, was the catalyst for the violence to follow. Vaughan is supposed to be her friend as well, yet she puts up with Doyle's abuse of him without a word except "let's get out of here, Doyle's being mean again".

Really sickening, the way the character is written. Thornton fell down on this one aspect, although I've known women myself who put up with total abusive *beep* for years, at the expense of their children, just because they didn't want to be alone they didn't have the strength of character Thornton is portraying Frank's mother as having. It's a bad piece of writing, and he should have come up with a better explanation than "she's just too lonely the times he's gone"- who the hell could be lonely enough to have this total waste of oxygen, racist, bigoted, abusive, hateful, drunken, loud, boorish, controlling etc. POS around? Personally, as a woman, I'd rather be lonely, to quote Loudon Wainwright III.

[–] t-basham69 8 years ago

Personally, as a woman, I'd rather be lonely, to quote Loudon Wainwright III.

Good for you. I just have one question: Are you from the south? Most southern women--especially in small towns--get married right out of high school, because they figure if they don't, they never will. That's because most of them are not smart enough to get out, and STAY GONE!!! If you're from the south, you can completely understand Linda's character, whether you agree with her actions or not.

"I'm alone; I'm not lonely." Neil McCauley/Heat

[–] PenTheater 8 years ago

Most southern women--especially in small towns--get married right out of high school, because they figure if they don't, they never will.

Is that really just a southern thing?

Ephemeron.

[–] t-basham69 8 years ago

Well, I don't know. I just know that it's common in the south.

[–] bhoover247 8 years ago

It's as much a small town rural mind set as it is a southern thing. I'm sure this backwards way of thinking exits in the mid west and other parts of the country. Thankfully, this idea of marrying early and staying married no matter how much a creep your spouse is, is becoming less common. We are slowly swinging in the other direction. Live with someone till they make you mad and then go find someone else to live with.

[–] zwolf 8 years ago

Some people just need killing. They're detrimental to everybody around them, and they won't change. Tolerating them will only allow them to keep harming people. Doyle Hargraves was one of those people. Maybe there was some other way to nullify the threat Doyle was posing, but Karl wasn't a sophisticated enough thinker to come up with it, so he traded his freedom to give a life to the mother and her son. If Doyle had remained in the picture, their lives would have been crap. So, yeah, Karl is a hero. What he did may not have been the best way to handle it, but it was the best one he was capable of coming up with, given his intellect. He knew the trade he was making and what he was sacrificing.

[–] lanis_cupus 8 years ago

So, yeah, Karl is a hero.

No, Karl is mentally ill and his actions reflect that more than anything else.

Some people just need killing.

Do you really mean to assert this on a public message board? (or anywhere else)

[–] bhoover247 8 years ago

Somebody watched one too many cowboy movie.

[–] lanis_cupus 8 years ago

Even in the old west they sometimes just ran bad guys out of town.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 9 years ago

Is Karl's act heroic? In some context, I think yes. He saves Frankie from the next few years of hell, and possibly doing it himself when he's 16, 17...leading to a life of violence and possible prison. He sacrifices himself for Frankie, which to me, is heroic.

In some moral if (obviously) not legal sense Karl did the right thing by saving Frankie from a life of abuse. However, I'm not sure it was such a great sacrifice for Karl to go back to the psychiatric hospital. When re-incarcerated, he tells J.T. Walsh's character that the world out there was "too big" for him - i.e. more than he could handle emotionally or intellectually. Karl may have thought that the psychiatric hospital was where he really belonged anyway.

[–] sharpobject2424 9 years ago

In a more conventional film Doyles murder would have been sparked in a moment immediate danger for Karl or any of his loved ones, but to me this makes the pre-meditated nature of Karls' actions more interesting. It got me thinking about what really motivated him, as opposed to the less complex yet redeeming quality of a knee-jerk self defense killing. It also got me thinking about his true level of intellect.

[–] hodie1 9 years ago

Karl knew enough to intuit that Doyle might kill Linda or Frank. I find it hard to understand how he could be seen as a villain.

[–] hodie1 9 years ago

I assume Linda would have learned her lesson after Doyle's dispatch to Hades.At least I hope so.

[–] bhoover247 9 years ago

I would hope so but her track record doesn't give much hope. She lets her son hang out with a mentally limited man who has just been released from a mental hospital for killing two people. She keeps taking back an abusive boyfriend who subjects her son to mental cruelty if not physical cruelty. This on top of the abuse he dishes out on her.

[–] hodie1 9 years ago

Yeah, I see your point. I wouldn't want my kid hanging out with an adult male regardless of his mental age. I never really got why Linda put up with Doyle. We're told it was for the times he was good to her, but I never saw any of that. Reminds me a little of the movie "First Born", where Teri Garr has a horrible boyfriend. Of course she was a drug abuser, but Linda didn't even have that excuse.

[–] hodie1 9 years ago

Pretty sure Karl already knew he wasn't going to be happy in the outside world, but before he went, he made sure that Frank was going to be okay. He had had a violent father and wanted to be damn sure Frank would never be hurt by Doyle, who clearly didn't like Frank. Vaughn had even told Karl he was afraid that Doyle might hurt or even kill Linda or Frank.

[–] PenTheater 9 years ago

I just always thought Karl reacted to a horrible situation when he was young, but he later learned that it was a "bad" decision and that he shouldnt have killed them.

Carl has had several years to think about a lot of things. I would imagine hardly a day went by that he didn't think about that fateful day on the back porch. What he did, what he could have done, if he had to do it all over again, what should he have done.
And he also probably thought about how his life would be different if he hadn't been cared for at the hospital all these years.
He might not have had any idea what his fate would have been if their had been no murder when he was a teen, but he did know what his life was like in the nervous hospital.
I imagine all those ideas helped shape his thoughts on taking "care" of Frank, and Doyle.
Pre-meditated? Yep. But wrong? Carl's lawyers, if he even were to get or need any, could have had quite a summation if this event went to trial.

But of course this isn't a story about Law and Order, it's a story about sacrifice.

Ephemeron.

[–] ciddysaurus94 9 years ago

I think Karl was trying to save Frank from making the same decision as he had made. Frank states several that he'd "like to kill that son of a b*tch." Later, when Karl is confessing to Linda about his past, he tells her that he was about Frank's age at the time.

Honestly, I didn't see why there was so much fuss over Doyle. Obviously the guy was a pigheaded a**hole, but he never really struck me as being the dangerous monster everyone made him out to be. Then he tried to hurt Frank. Had Karl not been there, God only knows what would have happened. That's when he finally leaves and starts saying his "goodbyes" to everyone.

Was it premeditated? Perhaps. It may have been a thought in the back of his mind the entire time. After Doyle tries to go after Frank, that's when he ultimately makes his decision to kill him. Karl was slow, but I wouldn't call him stupid or "mentally retarded," as they referred to him in the film. He always struck me as having a form of autism. He knew he couldn't spend the rest of his life living in someone's garage, whether it be Linda's or the shop he worked at. In all honesty- as terrible as it sounds- the hospital was probably the best place for him, given his situation.

As I said before, Karl probably saw Frank going down a similar path. What makes it different is that Frank isn't slow or mentally ill. He would have been put in a juvenile facility or prison depending on the length of his sentence. Karl knew that they'd take him back to the hospital and that would be the end of it. If you really consider the situation, you can kind of see the logic behind his actions at the end of the film.

[–] uglyitab 9 years ago

Excellent insight on one of my favorite movies.

Karl's limited intellect isn't necessarily genetic. He lived in that shed with a hole in the dirt for his bed and no human contact of any kind other than to drop off his meal and maybe "an extra blanket when it's cold" for the first years of his life.
So much of our care and development in those early years drastically affect our learning capacity and potential in every area throughout life.

Even when he went to school he was either totally ignored or the target of insults and physical assaults -- which were also totally ignored by teachers. He learned to read in the nervous hospital, not by the age of 12 in school.

His literally genius aptitude with fixing just about anything with a motor or electronic parts, with no instruction whatsoever, and his capacity to love Frank and Linda are impressive given his entire life.

That's why I don't label as savant his fix-it ability; who knows what all he'd excel in given even normal love, nuturing and attention those early years. Much less an evaluation for learning disabilities. (Which of course aren't all related to intellect.)

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] TongueFu 8 years ago

"...wayed the pros and cons..."
Wayed?

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Beaubelle 8 years ago

and meansed.

[–] ratherbebocce 8 years ago

What rage ? Tthere was no rage at all.
Karl decided the only way to protect the mother and the boy
from the MONSTER was to eliminate the monster.
Doyle was just like Karls dad. He was vicious and dangerous.
This type of story is all too common.
That is why B.B.T. character was the hero of the story.