A Simple Plan

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Summary: Greed is good - or at least this film is!
Review: During a hunting expedition, brothers Hank (Paxton) and Jacob (Thornton) and Jacob's friend Lou (Briscoe) encounter a downed plane containing a deceased pilot (obviously) and a four million dollar loot. Desperate to keep the money, they concoct a simple plan.

But they soon discover that even the simplest of plans can go awry. While the brothers are attempting to replace some of the evidently initially stolen cash at the suggestion of Hank's wife Sarah (Fonda), an elderly neighbour almost uncovers their secret. This inadvertent act ignites a tragic sequence of events in which the three men play a game of cat and mouse with each other and with the law. Eventually, and inevitably, each man falls victim to his own greed.

This film is a highly entertaining thriller, a roller coaster ride of twists and turns, and a vivid portrait of avarice and the callousness and banality that accompany it.

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Summary: Turn off your logic circuits before watching this movie.
Review: I had high hopes for this movie before I saw it, I've always been a fan of Sam Raimi and the movie had been reviewed well by critics. But I found it very disappointing. The major flaw was the screenplay. The events that occur in the film, and the decisions that the characters make that lead to those events are ludicrous. The pacing of the whole film was a problem as well. Everything happens too fast. I felt like I was watching an edited version of something that had been an hour longer.

There were a couple of scenes that were done very well and saved the movie from being a total loss. It's a shame that the entire film didn't maintain that level of quality.

For a much, much, MUCH better story about greed and murder in a snow covered setting, get Fargo instead.

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Summary: "She said hi to me.That was cool.She didnt have to do that."
Review: 'A Simple Plan' is a great film. It isn't particularly original, and the plot has already been done to death. But the performances, and all the little touches, make this is truly superb film. Sam Raimi demonstrates that he is criminally under-worked as a director, having made his mark with the classic 'Evil Dead' trilogy and done little else since. With 'A Simple Plan' he shows his restrained side, so far unknown to movie-goers. Instead of focusing on zany, risky camera acrobatics, and gory slapstick, he focuses on the characters, and their respective lives of misery, in a bleak town. Pill Paxton, giving a more internal performance to his normal action-heroics, is the film's protagonist, and is the younger brother of Billy Bob Thornton, who suffers from learning difficulties, and has to say the least, very little in common with his brother. The plot revolves around the discovery of over $4 million in a crashed plane, and the agonised soul-searching about what to do with the money. Murder and betrayal ensue, punctuacted be a personality metamorphosis by Bridget Fonda (playing Paxton's pregnant wife). With most, genuinely touching dramas, you have to watch the whole thing, and get sucked in, in order to emotionally connect with the characters. But some of the final scenes with Billy Bob Thornton (especially the scene where he sets his brother straight about his only 'girlfriend') are simply magnificent. Just start watching at that point, and the tears will start to flow. Billy Bob Thornton is one of the best actors working in Hollywood today (along with Ed Norton). It is a monumental performance. I'm running out of complimentatry adjectives! Truly outstanding.

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Summary: A VERY GRIPPING MOVIE FROM SAM RAIMI
Review: Sam Raimi is probably one of the most underrated directors of all time. A Simple Plan is a perfect example of his brilliance. This is a story of two brothers and thier friend who find a duffel bag full of money in a crashed plane in a rural area. They must decide if they are going to keep the money or turn it in to the authorities. Bill Paxton is superbly cast as the "conservative" brother and Billy Bob Thorton is "brilliant" as the slow witted Jacob. A Simple Plan is extremely intense throughout. An example of the "domino effect" when it comes to trusting another person. The cinematography in A Simple Plan is outstanding. It takes place in a rural northern american town in the dead of winter. A feeling of "cold seclusion" is evident throughout the entire movie. The soundtrack is "creepy" and very fitting to the surroundings. Any movie directed by Sam Raimi is worth watching. Any movie that has Billy Bob Thornton (one of my personal favorite actors) in it is a must for anyone who loves brilliant acting. Put these two geniouses together with a very smart and intense storyline and you have A Simple Plan. A must see for anyone who appreciates great cinema!!

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Summary: Effectively atmospheric, ultimately emotionally empty
Review: Sam Raimi uses a rural winter landscape to the same eerie effect as the Coen brothers did in Fargo, but the basic premise of the movie--after all the existential questions have been pondered and the layers of symbolism brushed aside--that money is the root of all evil is a hackeneyed one. It just doesn't play in an age when overpaid actors play characters trapped in poverty who automatically resort to the dark side with the promise of instant wealth. They just don't get my sympathy.

Economic poverty is one thing; emotional poverty quite another. The latter affects rich and poor alike. The former and its attendant stresses can certainly be alleviated. Money is not the root of evil. It, like anything, can be an instrument of evil. It can also, as this film inadvertantly endorses, buy freedom from the grind of miserable obscurity that always existed in its characters. It just took the smell of money for them to realize it.

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Summary: The Dissolving Grey
Review: A black crow stands on a tree branch in the bleak winter of a frozen Minnesota forest. Its opaque black color against the bright white snow is the token startling image of Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan. Under the crow's gaze two men are ecstatic but one is worried. They have found "the American dream in a duffle bag" as one of them describes it. As the drunk Lou(Brent Briscoe) and the slow witted Jacob(Billy Bob Thorton) convince the upstanding Hank(Bill Paxton) of keeping the four million dollars they have found in an abandoned plane. Jacob looks up at the crow and says: "They wait for things to die, so they could eat them. What a wierd job." The bird stares back. And waits.

The money is foremost an event that activates a dormant family bitterness between the college educated, employed and married Hank and his lonely and jobless brother Jacob. As the tension mounts Jacob is used like a pawn in battle of wills between Lou who wants to spend the money and his brother Hank who wants to sit on it till they're sure it is safe to do that. Caught between the only friend he has ever had and a brother who has never reached out to him, Thorton's performance is brilliant in the way he embodies desolate loneliness and buried hurt. In scene of astonishing emotional impact he confesses to his brother he has never kissed a girl, that a girl to appeared to date him in school was infact doing it as a bet, that he wouldn't mind having a woman be with him "even it was just for the money".

In thrillers, weather they are about hiests or fugitives, the magnitude of the events usually makes the characters behave in an extreme fashion. The adrenaline of the thriller's events blinding its characters, dissolving the grey unresolved emotions of everyday life. They become black and white. Heroes and villians. Although A Simple Plan is a superb thriller, it never forgets that these characters are human beings before they drove the plot forward. As a result the film also becomes a deeply absorbing human tragedy.

I remember reading Scott B.Smith's sterling novel of the same name, and I approached the film with skepticism. Afterall the director Sam Raimi is better knowm for films where severed limbs have a mind of their own. In adapting his own novel, Smith tightened it up, omitting a brutal murder towards the end and more significantly changing a scene where in the novel it was a cold blooded murder, in the film version it has an element of self defense. I believe this was a wise choice because in the novel form he had more time to explain how the characters justified thier actions to themselves. Had he kept those scenes in the film, he would have lost the sympathy of the audience. Raimi also shows admirable restraint, putting the characters first and letting actors(all superb) shine. With the help of an unintrusive but brilliant Danny Elfman score, he is able to create a chilling atmosphere that never overwhelms the film.

The most significant scene comes towards the beginning of the film. As Hank comes home to his lovely, soon to be Lady Macbeth, housewife, he asks her a theoretical question: "Suppose you found lost money, would you keep it?". She says that she wouldn't but has a complete moral u-turn once he spills four million dollars on their living room table. While watching the scene I asked myself if I would keep the money. I would. And I would live to regret it.

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Summary: **The Simple Plan -- A Thriller**
Review: The film, 'The Simple Plan' was done very well. It was based off of a book as well. The book was even better then the movie. However, the movie was fantastic too!

It's about three people who run into 4.4 million dollars in a crashed plane. Should they keep it, or turn it in? Of course they keep it. They made up a simple plan, easy to complete. Although, it doesn't turn out too well.

I found two glitches in the movie. One time a character in the film is to return $500,000 to the plane. Yet he only brings what looks like $50,000 or less. The other glitch I noticed was that Sarah (Bridget Fonda), the wife of Hank (Bill Paxton) states in the beginning of the movie that they don't need the 4.4 million dollars. Yet at the end when Hank wants to put it back in the plane Sarah starts up on how she won't be happy because they'll be poor, and will not be able to do this or that.

But all in all, the theme of the movie is realistic. This movie is 5 Stars ++. I suggest that everyone see this dark drama. The acting is wonderful. It also teaches a lesson. This is one great movie no one should miss out on.

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Summary: Great Movie from an Even Greater Book!
Review: Sometimes it's very difficult to watch a movie that has been made from what you consider one of the best thrillers of the 90's. Scott B. Smith's "A Simple Plan" is an astounding novel; it's depiction of how money can change simple, honest people into murdering, greedy criminals is assembled so meticulously and perfectly, you can't believe you have just read what you have read! Mr. Smith then had the task of writing a screenplay to bring this marvelous book to the screen. Unfortunately, cinematic bureaucracy must have dictated some major changes not only in the plot of the book, but also in the actual personality and motivations of the characters. As in most cases, the book far outshines the movie, but nonetheless, Sam Raimi's film version is still an outstanding and overlooked film. The movie got released at the last minute in 1998 to qualify for Oscars, and undoubtedly, it was worthy of more nominations than it received. But after that, the movie got lost and wasn't seen in as many theaters as it should have been. What people missed is an outstanding performance by Billy Bob Thornton (who should have won his Oscar); Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda (who should have been nominated); and Scott Smith's tight script (nominated). Credit goes to Mr. Smith for managing to infuse the film with the same sense of hopelessness and despair as in his book, even if the omissions in plot and characterization are missed by the book's readers. So, if you haven't read the book, you are in for a real treat. Enjoy. And if you have read the book, then maybe like me, you'll find this movie good enough to make you want to go back and read the book again!

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Summary: As close to the Great American Metatragedy as we've seen
Review: When this movie was released, Billy Bob Thornton half-jokingly referred to it in an interview as "the feel-bad movie of this Christmas season." And he wasn't that far wrong about it. This is pretty much the classical metatragedy, where the true evil lies in the ability of men to become corrupt through no real fault of their own.

Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton) and his brother Jacob (Thornton), along with their friend Lou (Brent Briscoe, a longtime Thornton collaborator), are together when they discover a wrecked plane containing, in part, $4.3 million. The three devise a plan that will, conceivably, allow them to keep the money-- assuming no one comes looking for it.

Murphy's Law plays as much a part as the eventual, and necessary, corruption of the three conspirators, along with Hank's wife (Bridget Fonda). Anything that can go wrong does, and everyone involved soon finds they're far deeper into this mess than they ever thought they could get.

It's got a lot of potential, and it's been a while since we've seen a really great metatragedy (thanks in no small part to the cynicism in American society today). And A Simple Plan almost, but not quite, gets there. Much of the reason for the movie's failure can be traced directly to Bill Paxton, who more than once seems to forget everything he learned in acting school and comes off as wooden and unconvincing.

That said, Thornton, Fonda, and Briscoe are all fantastic, and make the movie worth watching, at least. It's not the Great American Metatragedy, but it comes closer than anything we've seen in the last half-century or so.

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Summary: People don't act this way
Review: I was looking forward to "A Simple Plan" as I like Sam Raimi, and I had heard a number of positive reviews. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The movie started off well enough - the atmosphere was strong, Paxton's and Thornton's characters were sympathetic and interesting, and the plot had potential. Then, the film fell into the same trap a number of recent films have fallen into (i.e. "Being John Malkovich", "Election") - it forced a main character that had been presented to the viewer as sympathetic to something completely amoral and out of character to move the plot along. When Paxton's character gruesomely murdered the old man in the field, the film went spiralling out of control. I could not accept that this character, who had been presented as a moral, intelligent man, would commit this act. One might argue that the film is trying to make a point - that anyone can turn to murder if he or she feels he or she as no other choice. That argument doesn't work for this film. There are a number of reasons why this act was unnecessary, and to have the most reasonable character in the film forced to commit it compounds the problems. With the main character no longer credible, the film drags on episodically and for far too long. Fonda's character also changes unrealistically - she becomes greedy and complicit in her husband's unbelievable crimes almost instantaneously - she originally was presented as a sensible, decent person. I am not arguing that a sympathetic character in a movie cannot change. For the movie to work, however, the change the character goes through MUST be believable. The director can create this environment by either drawing a more complex characterization of the character in question so the viewer can accept the appearance of a "different side" of the character, or by putting the character in such an unquestionably impossible situation that the viewer can accept that the character has no other choice. "A Simple Plan" fails on both counts.

The string of killings that follow are predictable and of little relevance to the story. The Thornton character is used as a sentimental ploy for the viewer to latch onto - we are supposed to sympathize with this slow, victimized man as he and his brother get further and further into trouble. He is given earthy monologues about building a farm and an empathetic camera. This just doesn't work. The whole relationship between his brother and him is too obviously like that of Lenny and George from "Of Mice and Men". His final request of his brother is supposed to be moving, but it rings false. Unlike "Of Mice and Men", his original murderous act was followed by further murderous acts, and these acts were sanctioned by his brother. Paxton's character suddenly "learns" from his brother at the film's end, but the lesson he "learns" was already part of his character at the film's start, and he only "unlearned" it for dramatic effect and the plot to push on.