IN SAYING
EVERYTHING ABOUT A MOVIE?
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IN SAYING EVERYTHING ABOUT A MOVIE? |
| ONE
FALSE MOVE
(director: Carl Franklin; screenwriters: Billy Bob Thornton/Tom
Epperson; cinematographer: James L. Carter;
editor: Carole
Kravetz; music: Peter
Haycock/Derek Holt;
cast: Bill
Paxton (Dale (Hurricane) Dixon), Cynda Williams (Fantasia
- Lila
Walker),
Billy Bob Thornton (Ray Malcolm), Jim Metzler (Dud Cole),
Michael Beach
(Pluto),
Earl Billings (John McFeely), Natalie Canerday (Cheryl
Ann),
Robert Ginnaven
(Charlie), Robert
Anthony Bell (Byron), Kevin Hunter (Ronnie), Phyllis
Kirkin (Mrs.
Walker), Layne Beamer (Texas State Trooper); Runtime: 106;
MPAA Rating
R; producer: Jesse Beaton/Ben Myron; Sony Pictures Home
Entertainkment;
1992) |
| "Hard-boiled
modern-day
film noir that explodes on the screen with great
force."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Former black actor Carl Franklin ("Devil in a Blue
Dress"/"One True
Thing"/"High Crimes"), in his
directing debut, has a winner in this hard-boiled
modern-day film noir
that explodes on the screen with great force. It's
cowritten by Billy
Bob Thornton and Tom
Epperson, with the former in a starring role. A trio of coke-heads,
Ray Malcolm
(Billy
Bob Thornton), Fantasia (Cynda Williams) and Pluto (Michael Beach), raid a few
drug houses in
LA and kill six and rob the merchandise and some
$15,000 in loot. The
LA investigation led by detectives Dud Cole (Jim Metzler) and John McFeely (Earl
Billings) traces the
killers through a video
camera
running at a party in one of the vic's suburban houses
and from a neighborhood
snoop who identifies Ray's car
at the crime scene. It seems Ray has a legal
guardian uncle in Star City, Arkansas, and the
detectives are sent to
the quiet rural town just in case he shows. The young
family man chief
of police, Dale (Hurricane)
Dixon (Bill Paxton), of the hick town, is excited
about being involved
in the biggest case in his six-year career, and the
energetic smalltown
cop can't stop naively talking like a hero worshiping
schoolboy about
getting in on the action to the sneers of the big city
coppers. The trio's plan to
sell the
cocaine in Houston goes awry, as they murder a state
trooper (Layne
Beamer) who
pulls them over in their car and then
they murder their drug contacts who try to cheat them
during the drug
deal. Fantasia, whose real name is Lila Walker,
returns home alone to
Star City to visit her 5-year-old son Byron raised by
her mom. The suspense builds,
as the
volatile white killer Ray and the black psychopathic
knife wielding
killer Pluto, former jail mates, trek to Star City to
pick up the
drug-wasted but more gentle Lila, before the men
decide to go different
paths. Meanwhile we learn that the white chief of
police knocked up the
black Lila (she
had a black
mother and a white father) when
she
was
only 17 and never took responsibility for Byron. It
leads to a
gruesome finale, where the violence is graphic and the
outcome is
unsettling. This film makes no
false
moves, as it provides a rich character study, drops a
few precious
nuggets on racism, observantly delves into
relationships and
accomplishes a first-class suspenseful crime drama
that drips with
bloody fatalism. REVIEWED ON 4/14/2010 GRADE: A Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |