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Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem

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A Simple Plan

A Simple Plan

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A well crafted thriller
Review: Reminiscent, of Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, A Simple Plan still deliver's the good's. Bill Paxton, and Billy Bob Thorton, play brother's, along with friend Brent Briscoe, who stumble across a crashed plane, in the snowy wilderness. In side the plane they find the dead pilot, and four and a half million dollars in cash. After considering what to do with the new found wealth, the men decide to let Paxton, set on the money for a year, and see if anyone claims it. Sound's like a simple plan! Well it's not!. Soon greed and lust consume the three men, along with Bill Paxton's seamingly straight-laced wife, and all hell break's loose. Good people are changed into money hungry enemie's almost overnight, and nothing is as simple as it seem's. Billy Bob Thorton stand's out as Jacob, a simple minded man who realize's, after it's to late, (THAT MABEY WE SHOULD HAVE NOT FOUND THAT PLANE AFTER ALL). It's really disturbing, to see how good decent people are really affected by money, and how they can let money come between, friendship's, marriage, and family.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ENTERTAINING, BUT NOTHING ORIGINAL
Review: The best thing about this movie was Billy Bob Thornton's performance - brilliant! Aside from that, it was little more than a Fargo/Macbeth wannabee. Lesson: Never copy the great ones! Your work will inevitably be compared and usually come up short.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dissapointing!
Review: The actors tried their best and thats all that matters but I felt the story line was awfully dumb and that it was a waste of time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Simple Plan's chilling message leaves you shivering
Review: A Simple Plan is perhaps the finest movie about the consequences of greed since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Three friends accidentally stumble across a crashed plane and upon inspection find more than they bargained for: more than a million dollars in cash and an equal amount of problems to go along with it. A Simple Plan is unrelenting in its suspense and grimness. Its pace is as quick and as frenzied as its characters' plummet into moral purgatory. The only problem I had with A Simple Plan was its Midas Touch mentality. And the conclusion was not true to life. That said, A Simple Plan is still a brilliantly acted and scripted motion picture with a message that is chilling enough to leave you shivering after it's over.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disgraceful!!
Review: Watching this movie is very frustrating. There is one fatal flaw in this movie (involving bullets and a gun). The dialogue is cliqued and the symbolism overbearing and obvious. The completely unrealistic actions of the protagonists just drove me to madness. From the very beginning, the plot is just completely unbelievable. You almost feel like they are ruining their lives on purpose with one stupid action after another. You know in the beginning just how they will all end up. This movie is proof that even great acting (Billy Bob) cannot save a bad script. Enough with the crows!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sam Raimi's crowning acheivement
Review: I love Sam Raimi movies. I am a huge fan of all three of the Evil Dead movies. This movie is of a different genre though.This suspense thriller has been said to echo Fargo, but I strongly disagree. Fargo is a dark comedy and Simple Plan is an excruciatingly intense thriller. Bill Paxton is one of the greater acting talents today and he certainly shows it here.Why there was no Oscar nomination is beyond me. Thornton gives another incredible ( is there a performance where he doesn't ? ) performance. And Bridget Fonda has never been better. The script is superb and Sam Raimi's directing is always on top of things. I won't ruin the ending for anyone if they haven't seen it but I assure you , you will be deeply moved.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fargo anyone?
Review: A Simple Plan was an enjoyable enough movie played well by Paxton, Fonda and especially Billy Bob Thornton (who really should have won an Oscar along with a nod for his excellent performance in U Turn) but I couldn't help thinking it was too like Shallow Grave crossed with Fargo to stand on its own merit. The plot has been seen a thousand times before but the atmosphere and tension were pitched just right. A little more originality next time please but top marks for popcorn value.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best psycological thrillers I have ever seen.
Review: This movie simply blew me away. Even though it starts out rather slow with some rather "dim" characters, I was hooked on the snowy landscape and the moral dilemnas which the characters face. The slow downfall of the "moral, regular Joe" (Bill Paxton) and the rise in stature of the innocent yet surprisingly more astute Jacob was astounding. There are plenty of twists and turns and I have not been able to get the movie out of my mind since I saw it. It is brilliantly acted; Billy Bob Thornton was exceptional. Highly recommended. Ah, the things that greed drives men to do....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An amazingly tense, taut thriller that satisfies
Review: Based on the book by the same name, "A Simple Plan" was one of the most incredibly tense, taut movies I have ever seen in my life. What starts off as a scheme to keep over four million dollars in found money quickly turns into a web of deceit and murder.

Billy Bob Thornton turns in what can only be described as a sterling, flawless performance. Watch for a scene between Bill Paxton and him that will literally break your heart as they discuss a former "girlfriend" of Thornton's.

Also watch the way Bridget Fonda's character turns from one kind of wife and mother into another in slow stages, and you begin to understand how even the simplest of desires that beat within the human heart can turn your values and morals completely around.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: I feel I must agree with Greg B. To say a movie wasn't good because it wasn't the same as the book it was based upon is ridiculous, for film must follow different conventions than the written word. HOWEVER, that maxim is true only most of the time. Sometimes, what was left out of a film in the transfer from book to screen would have made a better cinematic impression . Such is the case with "A Simple Plan". Scott Smith more than likely felt compelled to water down his novel to fit Hollywood's narrow views of what makes a successful movie. He probably felt he had managed to still retain the spirit and impact of the book. Sorry,Scott, but I disagree. It was bungled badly, and what could have been a truly chilling morality tale ended up a by the numbers actiion thriller, with a thin moral fabric tacked on as an afterthought. Fair at best, only because a fine cast of actors save what should have rated zero stars. A dissapointment.


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