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One False Move

One False Move

List Price: $27.95
Your Price: $25.16
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: i never get tired of this one....
Review: i saw OFM when it first came out, over ten years back. it was on cable the other day. it still keeps me glued to the set. bill paxton, billy bob thornton, michael beach....great work. too bad this one didn't get more media and a larger audience.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: it's alright
Review: Normally I wouldn't review a movie like this, but the reviews were a little too kind and I regretably bought it because it wasn't available at the local rental store. Anyway, I didn't think it was an undiscovered gem but decent, pretty watchable, scenes are sometimes boring and non-relavent, but quality acting and an easy to follow plot help make up for it. A little predictable too. Basically, go rent it if you've nothing better to watch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unsure What to See?
Review: One False Move is one of the most graphic and spine tingling action mystery movies I have seen in a long time. There are many memorable scenes which give goose bumps to any normal viewer. Astounding performances where given by the dismal villains (Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Beach, and Cynda Williams) and the high spirited sheriff (Bill Paxton). This all-star team of actors only adds to the film. The only thing that I could think about was what could possibly happen next. It all begins in LA and later ends up in a back roads city in Arkansas, untouched by true cold blooded criminals. As the viewer you are shown what happens when a couple and their intelligent, but cruel partner, get greedy and commit several horrific killings. Unable to run and hide the three killers have to commit one murder after the next to try and save themselves. What started out as a simple agreement between the three, ended up putting one against the other to save their own skin. Ironically Fantasha, Ray's girl and Pluto's lose end, has a hidden secret with the quick acting sheriff of Star City. Unfortunately for them Hurricane, the sheriff of Star City, remembers Fantasha when he sees a picture from a convenient store security camera. See what happens when the LA police team up with Hurricane to bring these three killers to justice. I strongly recommend this movie for those of you tired of seeing the same old Hollywood movie, and seeking some adventure.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Little Known Classic
Review: One False Move is one of those great movies that a lot of people just do not seem to know about. The first 10 minutes of the film will be difficult to sit through for those with weak stomachs, not because it is gory, but because of the sheer cruelty inflicted by the villains Ray and Pluto. Cynda Williams is good as Fantasia, an attractive and personable young woman with a vulnerable exterior that conceals her true self. Bill Paxton is also good as Hurricane Dale Dixon, the small town sheriff who longs to work in the big city carrying a secret of his own. The two LA detectives who travel to Arkansas to work with Hurricane are played by relatively unknown actors but handle their roles well. Billy Bob Thornton looks a lot different with long hair and a heavier build. The tension that builds up towards the end of the film is so palpable that your heart will be pounding through your chest, accented by the sounds of the harmonica playing man at the side of the road. I strongly recommend this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: BLACK AND WHITE
Review: One of the first movies of director Carl Franklin ONE FALSE MOVE has been co-written by Billy Bob Thornton who plays the character of Ray in this above-average film noir. Ray and his companion, the psychotic Pluto, leave L.A. with seven corpses behind them. Two L.A. policemen will wait for them in Arkansas.

These two pairs form strange symmetrical couples. Between them, Bill Paxton and Cynda Williams are not only what they appear to be, they have a common history. If I borrow Carl Franklin's cinematographical vocabulary, they are not white nor black, they are grey.

ONE FALSE MOVE is extremely well written and you will have a lot of pleasure to discover how Franklin and Thornton have played with the theme of the black and white antagonism.

As bonus features, a commentary by Carl Franklin and two trailers ( the second one being THE DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS trailer). No French subtitles as falsely noted on the jacket.

A DVD to discover.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok for a detective story
Review: The three anti-heros were the most interesting part of the movie. Their characters got decent development, whereas everybody else were mere decorations. Some efforts were taken to make Bill Paxton's hero look 3d but he still looked as if he read the script right before the shooting. I felt the movie was doing good work showing a no frills life of a group of murderers. But my wife said it was too violent for such slow movie. The ending was so lame it made me laugh.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: And you're dead
Review: This cult favorite degenerate cocaine crime caper starts out in what looks like South Central L.A and ends up in rural Arkansas. Directed by Carl Franklin from a script by Billy Bob Thornton, and starring Thornton, Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, and Michael Beach, it begins with bloody bodies on the floor and ends with bloody bodies on the ground. There is some sprightly dialogue en route, some sharp editing, fine acting all around, and the dramatic tension is well maintained. We are intrigued by the clash of personalities and the degenerate hijinks. However, after awhile I began to feel that if they light up one more cigarette I will be forced to rip the pack from their hands, tear the stogies into shreds, and feed the debris to them with a large spoon. Also the standard quota of one thousand improvisations on the f-word was exceeded here. I am therefore condemning director Carl Franklin to an absurdist nightmare in which he dreams of getting scripts in the mail in which the dialogue for all characters consists of just that one word in its various grammatical forms, repeated for one hundred and twenty pages.

Paxton plays a small town sheriff in awe of the cops from the big city who is nonetheless intent on proving his manhood. (One of the cops, by the way, in a bit of prescient genius, looks a whole lot like former L.A. cop Mark Fuhrman before he got all those bags under his eyes.) Thornton is a kind of murderous cocaine-addled urban animal in a long greasy pigtail whose life has neither direction, purpose nor insight. Williams, whose primal sexiness will keep your eyes open even if it's two a.m., plays a chocolate strawberry who can kill when she has to. Beach is an icy cold-blooded knife murderer who spends his off-duty hours worshiping his well-muscled body and practicing squeaky-clean living. The familiar Billy Bob Thornton fascination with things country contrasted with things city is explored here and reminds us a little of A Simple Plan (1998) in which he also teamed up with Bill Paxton. This genre, which I might call "Grunge City gore," was morphed into an art form during the eighties and nineties in films from, e.g., Coen and Coen, Blood Simple (1984), David Lynch, Wild at Heart (1990), Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Oliver Stone, Natural Born Killers (1994), and others. This is actually one of the better ones, but I think I need a break. Maybe a nice Disney favorite or something with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...or even something with Bette Midler and Whoopie Goldberg.

Then again, maybe NOT.

Incidentally, the reason all these films made especially during the late eighties and early nineties contain some much blood and guts and cigarette smoke is (1) Sex had become somewhat taboo because of the rise of AIDS, and so Hollywood switched to violence, and (2) The tobacco companies fronted money for films that promised to have a whole lot of puffing going on. Hopefully we are living in more enlightened times.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: And you're dead
Review: This cult favorite degenerate cocaine crime caper starts out in what looks like South Central L.A and ends up in rural Arkansas. Directed by Carl Franklin from a script by Billy Bob Thornton, and starring Thornton, Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, and Michael Beach, it begins with bloody bodies on the floor and ends with bloody bodies on the ground. There is some sprightly dialogue en route, some sharp editing, fine acting all around, and the dramatic tension is well maintained. We are intrigued by the clash of personalities and the degenerate hijinks. However, after awhile I began to feel that if they light up one more cigarette I will be forced to rip the pack from their hands, tear the stogies into shreds, and feed the debris to them with a large spoon. Also the standard quota of one thousand improvisations on the f-word was exceeded here. I am therefore condemning director Carl Franklin to an absurdist nightmare in which he dreams of getting scripts in the mail in which the dialogue for all characters consists of just that one word in its various grammatical forms, repeated for one hundred and twenty pages.

Paxton plays a small town sheriff in awe of the cops from the big city who is nonetheless intent on proving his manhood. (One of the cops, by the way, in a bit of prescient genius, looks a whole lot like former L.A. cop Mark Fuhrman before he got all those bags under his eyes.) Thornton is a kind of murderous cocaine-addled urban animal in a long greasy pigtail whose life has neither direction, purpose nor insight. Williams, whose primal sexiness will keep your eyes open even if it's two a.m., plays a chocolate strawberry who can kill when she has to. Beach is an icy cold-blooded knife murderer who spends his off-duty hours worshiping his well-muscled body and practicing squeaky-clean living. The familiar Billy Bob Thornton fascination with things country contrasted with things city is explored here and reminds us a little of A Simple Plan (1998) in which he also teamed up with Bill Paxton. This genre, which I might call "Grunge City gore," was morphed into an art form during the eighties and nineties in films from, e.g., Coen and Coen, Blood Simple (1984), David Lynch, Wild at Heart (1990), Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Oliver Stone, Natural Born Killers (1994), and others. This is actually one of the better ones, but I think I need a break. Maybe a nice Disney favorite or something with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...or even something with Bette Midler and Whoopie Goldberg.

Then again, maybe NOT.

Incidentally, the reason all these films made especially during the late eighties and early nineties contain some much blood and guts and cigarette smoke is (1) Sex had become somewhat taboo because of the rise of AIDS, and so Hollywood switched to violence, and (2) The tobacco companies fronted money for films that promised to have a whole lot of puffing going on. Hopefully we are living in more enlightened times.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Violence for the sake of Violence?
Review: This film noir seems, like numerous others, to glorify ultra violence as a unique All-American activity. Others such as Fargo & Red Rock West, get a lot closer to pulling it off, this one doesn't. There is a sub-theme of black and white characters, but the point doesn't come across to either our or the movie's benefit. There is considerable violence and swearing, but no nudity or sex.

The 3 bad guys, one white guy and his black girlfriend, as well as a brainy black guy, pull off a grisly heist of narcotics and money. The murders of the witnesses who saw their faces could have been described briefly by the cops later, they didn't have to show the actual killing. The 3 bad guys decide to hide out in the small Ozark town where the white guy grew up. His girl friend is from there as well and her secret contributes to at least one or two additional deaths.

The Los Angeles detectives figure out their only clue to locating the thief/murderers might lie in the Arkansas town where the bad guys are actually heading. There is a semi-amateurish quality to this movie, as if the budget got cut just as production was to begin. In some cases that can work if done well, here it doesn't. It shows up glaringly first as the detectives are discussing the case.

Some of the characters work and some don't. The brainy bad guy's part didn't seem real although it was well acted. The bad girl friend's part seemed real, but her acting didn't. Bill Paxton does an excellent job of being an energetic sheriff who cuts the corners and has always wanted something spectacular to make people appreciate him much more favorably. When he gets in over his head, he's too inxperienced to realize how many mistakes he makes. The LA cops are cardboard figures as are the Arkansas town characters.

I found the characterization of the Arkansas town to be ridiculous. Are we to infer that all small towns have an angry husband trying to slice and dice his wife twice a week with an ax, and the sheriff just blows it off as local charm? The obvious contrast between LA and Star City Arkansas provided a missed opportunity to make a larger commentary about the variety in America. I was sorry it wasn't done.

The final gory climax is well done until the end. The end appears to be intentionally vague which further detracts from the movie.

The movie tries to be more than it is. It's a guy movie.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Violence for the sake of Violence?
Review: This film noir seems, like numerous others, to glorify ultra violence as a unique All-American activity. Others such as Fargo & Red Rock West, get a lot closer to pulling it off, this one doesn't. There is a sub-theme of black and white characters, but the point doesn't come across to either our or the movie's benefit. There is considerable violence and swearing, but no nudity or sex.

The 3 bad guys, one white guy and his black girlfriend, as well as a brainy black guy, pull off a grisly heist of narcotics and money. The murders of the witnesses who saw their faces could have been described briefly by the cops later, they didn't have to show the actual killing. The 3 bad guys decide to hide out in the small Ozark town where the white guy grew up. His girl friend is from there as well and her secret contributes to at least one or two additional deaths.

The Los Angeles detectives figure out their only clue to locating the thief/murderers might lie in the Arkansas town where the bad guys are actually heading. There is a semi-amateurish quality to this movie, as if the budget got cut just as production was to begin. In some cases that can work if done well, here it doesn't. It shows up glaringly first as the detectives are discussing the case.

Some of the characters work and some don't. The brainy bad guy's part didn't seem real although it was well acted. The bad girl friend's part seemed real, but her acting didn't. Bill Paxton does an excellent job of being an energetic sheriff who cuts the corners and has always wanted something spectacular to make people appreciate him much more favorably. When he gets in over his head, he's too inxperienced to realize how many mistakes he makes. The LA cops are cardboard figures as are the Arkansas town characters.

I found the characterization of the Arkansas town to be ridiculous. Are we to infer that all small towns have an angry husband trying to slice and dice his wife twice a week with an ax, and the sheriff just blows it off as local charm? The obvious contrast between LA and Star City Arkansas provided a missed opportunity to make a larger commentary about the variety in America. I was sorry it wasn't done.

The final gory climax is well done until the end. The end appears to be intentionally vague which further detracts from the movie.

The movie tries to be more than it is. It's a guy movie.


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