One False Move

Released 1991
Stars Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Beach
Directed by Carl Franklin

"One False Move" begins in Los Angeles with a series of brutal murders of people in the drug underworld. Three people are involved: two men who have teamed up to steal drugs and money, and the girlfriend of one of them. They're played by Billy Bob Thornton as a violent, insecure red-neck type; Cynda Williams as his lover, a black woman obviously deeply wounded in the past, and Michael Beach as the partner, a black man whose wire-rim glasses and impassive reserve conceal a capacity for sudden, cold violence.

Their original plan is to sell the drugs in Houston, but after they're identified as the fleeing murderers they change course, heading for the small Arkansas town where Williams' Fantasia was born and raised. The movie cuts ahead to the town, where we meet a cheerfully ambitious young sheriff, nicknamed "Hurricane" and played by Bill Paxton as the kind of guy who knows everybody in town and has never had to draw a gun in six years. He is mightily impressed when two Los Angeles detectives fly out to join him.

Summary by Roger Ebert