One False Move

[baumer]

Discuss

[baumer]

I just rewatched this again last night for the first time in perhaps a decade. I was simply floored by it. The story is simply incredible and the acting by everyone involved is top notch. I won't write my own review for it....but I will leave you with Eberts. He covers everything.Here is a crime movie that lifts you up and carries you along in an ominously rising tide of tension, building to an emotional payoff of amazing power. On the very short list of great movies about violent criminals, "One False Move" deserves a place of honor, beside such different kinds of films as "In Cold Blood," "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," "Badlands," "The Executioner's Song" and "At Close Range." It is a great film - one of the best of the year - and announces the arrival of a gifted director, Carl Franklin.Yet no words of praise can quite reflect the seductive strength of "One False Move," which begins as a crime story and ends as a human story in which everything that happens....... depends on the personalities of the characters. It's so rare to find a film in which the events are driven by people, not by chases or special effects.And rarer still to find a story that subtly, insidiously gets us involved much more deeply than at first we realize, until at the end we're torn by what happens - by what has to happen.The movie was written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, who begin by telling one story - about three criminals on the run from Los Angeles to Arkansas - and end by telling two. The second story involves the interaction between a small-town Arkansas sheriff and two tough Los Angeles cops...... http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920508/REVIEWS/205080302/1023

[mattmav45]

Very good film.

 

Don't be fooled by the very visceral opening scene, as this is a slow-paced crime drama fueled by great characters and performances. 

 

Special note has to go to Bill Paxton, in what I feel is his best performance.  It's heart-wrenching when the LA cops are putting down his dreams and he's standing right behind him.  Sure, he's a bit out of the loop and ignorant, but it's a great display of the difference in cultures at hand here. His heart is always in the right place, so that scene had some definite power to it.

 

Recommended.

[baumer]

So glad someone else has seen this...finally.  Good post matt.

[ecstasy]

Aw man. This film gets no love. I've seen it several times over the years and it is brutal and raw. None of the slickness that a lot of crime dramas have. This one is organic. The atmosphere is tense.  One of my favorite if not favorite Bill Paxton movie. All of the actors did a fine job, imo.  I love movies that just unfold in a natural way without being cliché and wrapped up in a neat little package. There are some true dilemnas here on the part of the protagonist (Bill Paxton).

 

Definitely an A in my book.