Colin Firth Defends the West Memphis Three in First ‘Devil’s Knot’ Stills

Courtesy of EW comes this first, small look at Atom Egoyan‘s Devil’s Knot, the dramatization of the horrible tale of the West Memphis Three, a trio of teenage boys who were convicted in the 1993 murders of three eight year-old boys despite a lack of evidence. Though the incident has been the subject of several documentaries, this is the first time their story has come to the big screen as a factual, but fictionalized drama based on a 2002 nonfiction book of the same name by Mara Leveritt.

Colin Firth is front and center in the only two stills released, and handsome as the man is, they’re not giving us much to work with before the film’s premiere at TIFF. Firth plays Ron Lax, a private investigator who worked to find DNA evidence that proved the three teens may not have committed the heinous crimes. In the first image, Firth appears on his massive ’90s brick phone, chatting about important PI business, while in the second, he sits in the courtroom with another investigator (Collette Wolfe) looking like they both just heard some bad news.

Hopefully the studio will be forthcoming with more imagery and footage, because as it stands, Devil’s Knot doesn’t have a U.S. distributor yet. As the case is one of the most powerful and polarizing in recent history (the trio were not released from prison until 2011), that fact is likely to change. We’ll surely hear a lot about this film soon, especially with it set to bow at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.