Yes, Robert Duvall did an excellent acting job, but everyone seems to be overlooking the obvious. The role Duvall played was for someone in his late 30s to early 40s. Duvall was in his late 60s when he made this and it almost becomes comical at times, like in the fight scene with Billy Bob Thornton. Actors and actresses have to be brutally honest with themselves and know when a part isn't right for them.
shareI thought both Duvall and Farrah Fawcett looked ridiculously too old to be parents to two young kids, but that for me was outweighed by what a fabulous job Duvall did with this role.
shareI agree that they were too old to have young kids like that, but I still love the movie. Besides, it's not out of the realm of possibility for a couple that age to have kids that young, just very unlikely.
shareWithout Duvall and his financial backing, I seriously doubt this movie would ever have been made. I don't think religious organizations would have financially backed this because it was after all about a preacher on the run from a murder he committed.
Actually it was more like manslaughter, since he hadn't seemed to plan this event with the baseball bat ahead of time. He may have been picked up on a murder charge, but a good DA should have pressed for manslaughter instead of murder because murder would be rather hard to prove. A good DA would want him to get some prison time, instead of walking on a murder charge. I would think Sunny would plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, in which case he would probably get no more than 10 years. With good behavior he could probably be out in less than 5 I would think.
I am not quite sure that a younger actor would quite know how to portray a holiness preacher.
There are other movies in which the actors or actresses seem a little too on in years to play Daddy and Mommy to young kids. You really don't need young kids in this movie. Teenagers or older would have worked just as well I think.
It's true what you say about Sonny likely getting convicted of manslaughter. Although it was Sonny's actions that ultimately killed the man, that's not what Sonny's INTENTION was when he went to the softball field. He went there -- unwisely a little tipsy -- to see his kids. He talks to the youth minister face to face and basically tells him to stay away from him and mind his own business as far as his kids are concerned. He also WARNS HIM in no uncertain terms that he'll kick some arse if he didn't back off.
Sonny only strikes the man with a bat AFTER he kept pestering him and, I should add, he only strikes him once on the cheek. This knocked him down and Sonny sees the church members praying over him as he drives away. When he leaves town to become "E.F." all he knew was that the man was in a coma. He confesses this later to the older black preacher, Blackwell, and tells him, "I'll do whatever you want me to do," to which the black minister responds, "We LOVE you, Sonny."
Yes, the kids would have worked better as teenagers, but maybe Duvall wanted younger kids due to the important softball sequence.
> "I don't think religious organizations would have financially backed this because it was after all about a preacher on the run from a murder he committed."
Duvall stressed in a 2010 interview with a Christian mag that his film wasn't mocking Southern holiness or Pentecostal preachers (not that you said otherwise).
He said Sonny unintentionally killed a guy out of anger, but he wasn't half bad as King David, who sent a man off to be killed so he could be with his wife.
Duvall heard that Billy Graham liked the movie and many other preachers as well. Rev. James Robison of Fort Worth said he could use anything from any of his services to put in the film. So he wasn't giving a mocking portrayal like Hollywood would have done, which is why he had to do the movie himself. He said that he had been to many Pentecostal churches in his life and COULD HAVE made these people look bad if he wanted. So he did not condescend at all.
He closed the topic by acknowledging that he was, in fact, a Christian; and that Hollywood tends to mock the heartland & South of the USA because they won't go out of their way to understand what's really there.
Google "Robert Duvall 2010 interview get low" and you can read the whole interview, if you're interested. It should be the top one.
Robert Duvall gives a great performance in this film, as in all his films, but he is too old for the part ...too bad he didn't get the financing when he was 20 years younger.
let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could
^^this
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
Why too old for the part?
If you've ever been around this crowd, you know it's not all that unusual for somebody in his 50s or 60s to be married to a woman, say, in her 30s, and having a couple of young children. It would also explain why the woman would feel some kind of connection with somebody more her own age, eventually, as in the plotline here.
Really, the "age" problem would've been more of a potential problem with Fawcett than with Duvall, although if you figure it's fairly common for women now to be having kids in their late 30s and early 40s, her character easily could've been in her mid-to-late 40s. I don't think she looked particularly older than that.
Exactly what I was going to say. Duvall wrote this movie in the 80s, when he would have been exactly the right age to play it. Sucks that he didn't get funding at the time, but I still think he made a pretty good movie.
shareshould have made the kids older. 15 &17
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he left u NAKED in a DITCH!
picasso fathered a child in his 68th year (anne paloma). two friends of mine (female) had their babies at 41. it could be possible to be this way in real life, i think.
i do agree with the poster who opined that it might have been more easily credible if the childen were-- say -- 15 and 17. why did they go for the young kids?
i can only opine. but perhaps they chose to cast younger children because a 15 year-old-teenager is a cast member (to be dealt with in the script), while a 3 year-old is just a cute object of affection, easier to deal with...
the ''kitten effect''. (((you know, the guy guns down 57 guys, he is a hero badguy, but he runs over a kitten (by accident) with his escape vehicle...oooooh, That's Terrible!! )) ''the kitten effect''.
Too much analyzing instead of just enjoying the performance that you admit was great. Guess that's why it's called ANALyzing!
Under our clothes, we are all naked! Bare nipples (of females), genitals or buttocks is nudity.
Robert Duvall was 66 and Farah Fawcett was 50 when this was made. And the kids were like 6 and 9. I don't see the big deal, at least in the 21st century. This was before Viagra, but a lot of men could still get it up at 60 back then.
shareRobert Duvall was 66 and Farah Fawcett was 50 when this was made.
What on earth? The beginning of the film, they showed him as a boy in church, in the 1930's.
If anything, Duvall was a couple years young to be playing the role as narratively depicted.
No one else could've played that part better. Did you think that maybe the problem was that the kids were too young? Seems more logical than the main character, who was about the age of those holy roller preachers like he portrayed.
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