William Boyle at The Current:
I vividly remember picking up One False Move (1992) for the first time, and that box cover. Cynda Williams’s face over a sunset shoot-out—a beater car and a police cruiser framing four shadowy figures, three on one side taking position against the cop, who looks to be freshly shot, a scene that’s different from what happens in the film—and the title in a fat white font, a four-star blurb from Gene Siskel’s review above it: “A brilliant detective thriller.” It was a beautiful time for me. A time of wonder and discovery. I wasn’t reading reviews. No one was telling me what I had to see—I was the only person in my family interested in movies, and my friends only ever went to watch what was showing at the multiplexes. I rented One False Move that day and went home and loaded it in the VCR. I knew Bill Paxton from Weird Science (1985), Aliens (1986), and Near Dark (1987), but his was the only familiar face. That first viewing blew me away: the urgency and rawness, the complexity of the characters. Back then, I couldn’t articulate what I was reacting to, but what I can say now—all these years later, having written several novels that are crime dramas—is that I’m most drawn to stories that are rooted in character and place, with deep psychological undercurrents. In my personal canon, One False Move is the quintessential example of what I respond to within the genre. For my money, it’s a perfect crime movie, infused with desperate energy and moral ambiguity, one that doesn’t miss a beat, one whose effects linger and deepen.
more here.