One False Move

source: One False Move

This is a good movie. Good, and nothing more. But a 7.7...... wow, that was too much! The action is normal, the characters are normal, the acting is normal and some times less than that... Not that much material here, don't let yourself fooled by the rating. But you can watch it, because as i said it's good enough. Vote: 5.5 out of 10.

Three criminals pull off a cash and drug heist in LA, which results in the sadistic and brutal murders of six people. The crooks are Fantasia (Cynda Williams), a bad girl with a soft spot. She got pregnant in her teens and got talked into the robbery by her boyfriend Ray Malcolm (Billy Bob Thornton) who is a paranoid and violent psychotic. Yet throughout the course of events, Fantasia wants to go back home to Star City and see her little boy (something that ultimately contributes to her downfall). The third member of the gang is Pluto (Michael Beach), a would be intellectual crime boss whose personality varies between being a cold and sadistic killer with a passion for knives and a cool calm and collected crook who won't kill unless he has to. Having pulled off the job they decide to make for Phoenix Arizona in order to sale the drugs and split the money. However, things are complicated by Fantasia wanting to go home and more blood is shed along the way. ONE FALSE MOVE is a neglected gem. It marked the feature-film debut of American director Carl Franklin who takes a run-of-the-mill cops and robbers yarn and wisely places the emphasis on character. He is most ably assisted in this by a largely unknown but solid cast who give their director maximum effort in every scene. Williams, Thornton (who also co-wrote the script) and Beach are excellent as the three gangsters while Bill Paxton is also excellent as Hurricane the Star City cop entrusted with the task of helping the LA police track the gang down. The film got a very poor release at the time and it was even denied the film a screening at the Sundance Film Festival and it was dismissed as too violent. The film starts off quite violently but once it gets going the emphasis is on good old fashioned character study, but because of it's failure to reach the Sundance festival it wasn't picked up by a major distributor and it more or less went straight to video. Director Carl Franklin has done very little since apart from DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS with Denzel Washington, a crime thriller that was well received by the critics but didn't take on with the public. Billy Bob Thornton, however, has since become an international star appearing in such modern classics as A SIMPLE PLAN (1999) and the Coen Brothers' sublime black and white noir film THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (2001).

SPOILERS. This genre piece excels. Everything seems to click and work together well. The story isn't very complicated. Three killers -- Billy Bob Thornton or whatever his three names are, Williams, and Beach -- drive from LA to Star City, Arkansas, where two LA detectives (Metzler and Billings) and a local chief of police (Paxton) await them. There are some violent incidents along the way and a final shootout in which people get pretty much what they deserve. There is one hole in the plot. Towards the end, Paxton is holding Williams captive and expecting a visit from the two unsuspecting murderers. He wants to call for help but Williams says she won't cooperate if he does. When she finally answers the phone and tells the miscreants that everything is kosher, come ahead, Paxton has ten minutes to call his office in Star City and have all his deputies rush out to his aid -- but he doesn't. It's a small point and the pace at this point is so up-tempo that it's overlooked. I'm describing it as intelligent because Frankin, the director, has handled the material very well. The local color, and local culture, of small-town Arkansas is effectively captured. None of the characters is overdrawn. Nothing is in-your-face obvious. The violence is over quickly and no more gory than necessary. And the violence is not used as a selling point -- not done in slow motion or with multiple squibs exploding everywhere. There are no car chases and no explosions. Instead there are characters that are at least half-way believable as are the interactions between them. The two LA detectives make fun of the hick police chief, laughing at his intention to apply for a job with the LAPD, not knowing that he's overhearing them. They just chuckle at the thought, and Billings says, "Can you imagine him hanging around Parker Center?" The other LA detective, Metzler, has a bland face and unimposing presence (he looks a bit like Fuhrman from the O.J. Simpson case) but he turns in a fine performance. Some of the minor touches are most delicate. Paxton's wife is trying to get Billings to talk her husband out of his fantasies about being a big-city policeman. "You know him," she says, "He watches TV. I read non-fiction." (I read non-fiction. That's good writing. By Bobby Jim Thornton, too.) In fact, everyone is good, even the usually wooden Paxton. Billy Joe Thornton -- or Clarence Earl Thornton, or Edgar Allan Thornton, or Oliver Wendell Thornton, or whatever his names are -- is outstanding as an impulsive weak killer. The performance is the more impressive if you know what a good-natured, easy-going guy he is off the screen. Beach is just fine as the college-educated guy with an IQ of 150 who never laughs or smiles behind his accountant-type eyeglasses but who slaughters helpless people dispassionately with a knife, as if they were nothing more than trussed-up swine. The only word to describe the sleepy eyed Cynda Williams is yummy. She's first-rate in this film, switching back and forth between black locutions and those one might expect in a white middle-class family in the San Fernando Valley. Do catch this one if you have the chance.

Boy, this film takes me back to the jerkwater Arkansas town where I spent several years of my youth. Bill Paxton (Aliens, True Lies, "Big Love") is spot on as a cracker sheriff who, in his words, hasn't drawn his gun in six years on the job. Well, he drew his gun seven years ago and it has now come back to haunt him and put him in a position that could get him killed. Billy Bob Thornton (A Simple Plan, Sling Blade, Astronaut Farmer), Arkansas born himself, co-wrote and starred in this film and really pulls off the psycho robber with such perfection that I really cannot understand how a supposedly intelligent guy like "Pluto" (Michael Beach - Short Cuts, "Third Watch," "ER") could hook up with him, especially since they spent two years in jail after the last job. Joining the duo, was Cynda Williams (Mo' Better Blues) in her second film, as Fantasia/Lila. She did a super job. As the trio heads to Houston from L.A. the body count rises and the Sheriff is put into a position where he has to act alone. False moves throughout the film just add to the tension and excitement.

"One False Move" is not a unique film. It has a derivative plot which has derivative characters - that take turns getting developed and forgotten very sporadically in the film. It's the typical on-the-run caper of the "perfect crime" that Ray (Billy Bob) and his spaced-out wacko pal named "Pluto" (Beach) screw up like two bumbling stooges who, no matter what, do their best to 'look' cool. Kind of like the brothers in "Night at the Roxbury". To these moronic maniacs - it seems to be about nothing but image and cool one-liners. Living in a fairytale, literally, is Fantasia (Williams) who's the 3rd screw in this monkey wrench of a getaway to a nowhere town in Arkansas. Waiting for them (with the anticipation of a kid at Christmas) is a racial-slurring, jittery sheriff nicknamed "hurricane" (Paxton) who can't wait to use his trigger finger. So the plot thickens like water into dirt and the result is mud, when plot holes as far as the eye can see start to appear.. Are we really supposed to believe that two L.A detectives are going to make a cross-country roadtrip to join up with a backwoods badge to catch two killers and a wannabe cokehead girlfriend that any rookie cop-on-the-beat could bust using something as simple as a cell-phone as some common sense? You be the judge. This is unfortunately another tragic example of the lack of inspired screen-writing, much like TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M or RED ROCK WEST. But the film does have some interesting plot equations that make it barely watchable. Which is only added by the fact that these are actors we usually depend on for performances. All in all - below average. When average for this genre is dead and buried.

Billy Bob and Tom Epperson started writing movies together (5 films with each other thus far) with this mildly over-rated movie about 3 criminals, who seem to take their cue from the Goldilocks & the three bears form of acting. You have Billy Bob (who overacts), Cynda Williams (who underacts), and Micheal Beach (who is just right). Bill Paxton is the local sheriff who teams up with two big city cops to take the threesome of perps down. The pace is slow & a sub-plot introduced late in the film brings it down to soap oprea standards. My Grade: C- Where i Saw it: Black Starz

This thing is long, very long to watch, yet it's 15 minutes shy of two hours. Go figure. If you were completely unaware that some black folks in America have white blood, and that some white and black folks are having sexual relations, then this may be an interesting movie for you to watch. However, you should understand that the multiracial crime scenes are complete garbage that does not exist in the real world, and Pluto -the black criminal- with the 150 IQ would not do the stupid things that he does here, though you may forget that he's supposed to be that smart because if not for the one spoken sentence by a police officer giving Pluto's profile to his fellow cops three hours earlier (or wait, the movie is less than two hours long, oh well) then you would never guess that Pluto is this smart. Perhaps eleven years ago this was supposed to be really "edgy", but now both the movie and the black director (whose career disappeared) are nowhere.

This has got to be one of the most boring insipid movies I have ever seen. I can't believe anyone could find anything redeeming about this film. I find the comments on this site extremely shocking. Everyone I know who has seen this film things it is awful. If you want to be bored out of your skull and keep asking yourself why am I watching this film, I recommend you check it out. Otherwise, it is a highly clicheed (the opening "violent" scene--oh please!!! We are supposed to fear this pocket-knife -wielding villain??) and highly uninspired B-movie and I suggest you never listen again to anyone that recommends you to watch this film.

This film is awesome!!!! The characters are all well developed and I loved the atmosphere created by director Carl Franklin. Bill Paxton is great in the lead role and Cynda Williams is a welcome surprise in this film. There's a different type of Billy Bob Thornton in this picture as he plays a very evil cocaine dealer. The screenplay is the reason for this film's perfection. What a great script and it should be shown to all screenwriters in Hollywood to help them develop their characters more and make their films more interesting. Great film.