ONE FALSE MOVE RATING: 8 / 10 --> Great movie
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Carl Franklin's breakthrough directorial film, joined Billy Bob Thornton and his then-roommate Tom Epperson's critically-acclaimed script, to become one of the best rated movies of 1992. Thumb-rater-critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel respectively acknowledged this film as the number one and number two rated film on their annual top 10 best movies of the year list.
PLOT: One white-trash huckster, his girlfriend Fantasia, and a cold, black College grad are on the run from the police after they dispense of some folks in a drug-related robbery. Headed towards her childhood town, Fantasia and the quibbling duo, take every precaution to avoid detection, but their respective weaknesses soon draw the L.A. police and a local small town Sheriff, right onto their butts.
CRITIQUE: Gritty, engaging, enjoyable and laced with spurts of graphic violence, this film presents us with several well-drawn out characters from different backgrounds, and recounts a tale of greed, drugs and accountability. The star of this film is definitely the script and the characters so well portrayed by the respective actors in this film. The story is evenly-paced and easy to handle, with the plot leading you down several paths at once, twisting and turning when need be, and adding several elements of the ol' small town humour. I really enjoyed this movie because it was an original plot that had me extremely interested in the characters and their eventual outcomes.
Bill Paxton was the standout in my mind as the perfectly naïve, but enthusiastic small-town hick cop who reveled in the mere presence of a couple of more seasoned L.A. cops. There is one particular scene in which the out-of-town cops are speaking about him, without their knowledge of his presence nearby, which will always be stapled in my mind as an uncomfortable classic. Paxton's reaction after that scene was superb, and left you feeling deeply for the man by the end of the movie. Billy Bob was also excellent as the "good ol' boy" without the deepest of consciences, and Michael Beach as the coldest, most ruthful character that I have seen drawn to screen in a while. All in all, this movie was an amazing achievement in the genre, and matches the Coen brothers' classic BLOOD SIMPLE (8/10) and even John Dahl's RED ROCK WEST (8/10). Even the ending was semi-ambiguous as to leave us with our own conclusion. The characters are rich and lively, the script highly involved, and the movie a solid piece of entertaining cinema.
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Billy Bob Thornton and Cynda Williams (who plays Fantasia in this film) were a married couple during the filming of this movie, but divorced soon therafter. As of 1998, Billy Bob has been married and divorced four times. Bill Paxton does not particularly like being recognized as "Chet" from 1985's WEIRD SCIENCE (7.5/10). I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he's transformed into a piece of turd by the end of film?
Director Carl Franklin was an actor by profession, before taking his shot at directing. He had bit parts in various movies, and a handful of TV shows including "The A-Team", "MacGyver", "Roseanne" and "The Streets of San Francisco". Michael Beach (who plays Pluto in this film) also played a cop named Wurlitzer in 1993's TRUE ROMANCE (9/10). Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton re-teamed as costars in yet another great small-town thriller, in 1998's A SIMPLE PLAN (8/10), as directed by Mr. Sam Raimi. Among the formative events of Billy Bob Thornton's childhood was the forging of a friendship with Tom Epperson, with whom he would later collaborate on several movie scripts, including this one. In 1977, after quitting College after two semesters, and convinced that he had a future in rock music, Thornton hooked up with his pal Epperson, who'd become an aspiring novelist, and the two of them went seeking fame and fortune in the Big Apple, where they managed to stick around almost long enough to unpack before fleeing back to Arkansas in terror. By 1981, Thornton and Epperson had nerved themselves up for a second shot at the big time, and, mindful of their lately discovered aversion to East Coast living, headed for Los Angeles. Thornton scraped together $200 to make the trip by driving a truck to Slidell, La., after his supernaturally insightful mother helpfully prophesied that he would "have some business" in a town of the same name. The pair worked odd jobs and wrote scripts, and, two years after their arrival, Thornton turned a serious eye to performing for the first time since high school and began taking acting classes (He had a part in 1989's CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN). A long dry spell ensued, and by 1984, the aspiring actor was living so lean he suffered a near-fatal malnutrition-induced heart failure brought on by weeks of eating nothing but potatoes. After receiving high kudos for the script of this movie, Billy Bob finally broke through in 1996, with his directorial debut of SLING BLADE (6.5/10), which he also wrote and starred in.
Review Date: December 25, 1998
Director: Carl Franklin
Writer: Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson
Producer: Ben Myron
Actors: Billy Bob Thornton as Ray Malcolm
Bill Paxton as Dale "Hurricane" Dixon
Cynda Williams as Fantasia/ Lila
Michael Beach as Pluto
Genre: Thriller
Year of Release: 1992
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(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian
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