Sonny Boy (1989 film)


Sonny Boy is a 1989 American black comedy-drama thriller film directed by Robert Martin Carroll. The musical score was composed by Carlo Maria Cordio. It stars Paul L. Smith, David Carradine, Brad Dourif, Conrad Janis, Sydney Lassick, Alexandra Powers and Steve Carlisle. David Carradine wrote the film's theme song, "Paint", which he performs in the film.

Plot summary

In 1970, Harmony, a small town in New Mexico, is run by a small-time crime boss named Slue, who accepts the delivery of a Lincoln Continental car stolen by his henchmen Weasel, who brings it after killing a couple who was travelling with their child. When the crime boss finds the couple's baby in the backseat he wants to kill him, but he is stopped by his transvestite “wife”, Pearl. Slue decides to keep the baby - which Pearl names “Sonny Boy” - but he cuts out the boy’s tongue and raises him as a mute accomplice in their crimes, training and treating him like a wild dog, and sending Sonny Boy to kill anyone who wants to steal from or opposes Slue's grip over the town. When the grown Sonny Boy escapes and tries to make contact with the outside world, the attention he draws to his warped family results in darkly-humored mayhem.

Cast

Carradine wrote and performed the theme songs for at least two movies that he starred in, Americana and Sonny Boy. The first line from the Sonny Boy theme, "Paint", is engraved on his headstone, as an epitaph.