Rating: 
Summary: A smart change of pace from Sam Raimi.
Review: Director Sam Raimi does a fantasic job in this film, well acted, well writting film from Scott B. Smith, based from his novel. Billy Bob Thornton is his best role since Sling Blade. Bill Paxton is rememeber for his strong performance. Bridget Fonda is very good also. Brent Briscoe does a great job also. Haunting Score By Danny Elfman is one of his best, he always great his music in his film.I rate this film four and a half out of five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Expected!
Review: When I bought this I thought "Another Action Flick ". What can I say? All of us make mistakes. The ending of movie was pure magic. I had never expected something of this quality from the previews I saw. Don't be misled it does have action but it also has a point. With a top notch cast this movie should last as a favorite for quite some time.
Rating:
Summary: A Glimpse Into the Mind
Review: I had no idea what to expect when I first began to view this movie. I had heard nothing about it, but that may be because I don't get out much. I felt the movie was captivating from the beginning, and I even felt that I might do something similar if put in the same situation. People expect too much out of movies. They say "Oh, the motivation just isn't there," or "Nobody would ever kill for money." Look at the real world. People are killed everyday for money. People are killed for a pack of smokes. The stakes just get higher when Thornton's simple minded character goes too far in some scenes. He's simple, he doesn't think things through. Paxton's character tries to bail him out of these situations as many brothers would. The weakness isn't in the motivation, the weakness is in Paxton's character. He is reserved, and he gets pushed around by everyone around him. When we watch, he reacts irrationally. If you put yourself in his shoes, he is reacting very rationally to an irrational situation. I think this is an excellent movie. It is a glimpse into the human psyche, and it illustrates how some people may react in extreme situations.
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly-made film, but falls short of greatness...
Review: This film surely is one of the best made films of the decade. Nobody can deny the brilliant acting from all the major actors (especially Thornton who steals scenes and Paxton who holds them together), the depressing music from Danny Elfman is a key element in the film's success, the main story and dialogue is one of the most intelligent of the year and of course, Sam Raimi does better than ever in directing the film. But there is something about the film which leaves you feeling empty when the credits start to roll. It is hard to describe, but I believe to put it simply the film did not know what point it was trying to give to its audience. It tried very hard -and succeeded- to be depressed about the power of greed on a human's behavior (even force a good person to do evil), and also gave the message that money is feeding that greed. I respect the effort by the people behind this film to make these points, but I do not support the fact that there is not one shred of hope in the making of these points. I am aware it is supposed to be a dark, depressing film but to reach positive effect on the audience with dark themes I believe you have to give an inch of light in the dark to create the full effect.
Rating: 
Summary: A very pleasant surprise
Review: "A Simple Plan" was one of the best films of 1998 and by far Sam Raimi's best film to date. At first glance, Raimi wasn't an obvious choice to bring Smith's novel to the screen. His earlier films all displayed considerable ingeniuity but they weren't subtle by any stretch of the imagination. In "A Simple Plan", Sam Raimi is awfully reticent and relies only on his story and his actors. The film tells the story of three men who find four million dollars in a crashed plane. This premise, which more resembles John Huston's "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" than the Coen Brothers' "Fargo", functions as a setup for a study of human nature. It shows, without being pretentious, the impact of money on a person's character. After they find the money, every person in the film re-evaluates his former live and suddenly comes to the conclusion that it was rather mserable, something they surely didn't think before. At the end, two of them are dead and the live of the survivor will be almost unbearable. The main reasons for the effectiveness of the film are the sharply drawn chracters and the fine performances (especially by Billy Bob Thornton). It makes the viewer feel uncomfortable because he can't reject the actions of the protagonists as something he would not even dream of doing. Instead we have the uncanny feeling that we would actually react the same way under these circumstances. "A Simple Plan" is haunting, poetic and endlessly intruiging film that comes close to the status of a masterpiece. Let's hope that Sam Raimi can live to that picture in the future.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful and haunting film
Review: A Simple Plan is a beautiful movie, one which plays it low-key throughout, never resorting to shock tactics to create horror in the viewer. All it needs to do this is show the events as they come, as there's nothing more terrifying than, as the tagline for the film says, good people doing evil things. This is one of the only films where the sheer banality of evil has been portrayed properly, and the acting is superb. Even Paxton who is normally rather dull manages to create a believable character - just watch the moment where he suffocates someone with his bare hands, an instance of very good acting. The photography is excellent, showing that Raimi is a talented director in any genre. The portents of the awful events to come are marvellous, like the use of the crows who act as some kind of silent narrators. The book was much more bloody, but I feel that it is for the better that this is not carried through to the movie (the original author wrote the screnplay, so who am I to argue). The picture quality is very good, picking out single snow flakes, and the trailer is suitably foreboding. A commentary from Raimi and the cast and crew would have been nice, but hopefully that will come in the future when this is re-released as the classic that it surely will become. Just incredible.
Rating:
Summary: A Simple Plan, alas, a simple DVD
Review: When I write reviews I usually don't focus much on the story; I'd rather let people know the pros and cons of the technical side of the movie and its video presentation. So what about A SIMPLE PLAN? It's a beautiful movie, with some absolutely breathtaking scenery that is well-served by one of the nicest DVD transfers I've seen. The picture is so wonderfully smooth and crisp, no oversharpening or pixelation, and since the film's palette is limited (let's face it - a lot of shades of white) you *need* the subtle graduation of color that a good transfer provides. Paramount comes up trumps in that respect. Sound is good, and the Danny Elfman score matches the film's color palette: gray, cold, subdued and thoughtful. The movie itself? I know a good many people who didn't like it, but perhaps that's more a matter of frustration - how can one NOT be frustrated as this simple plan goes so quickly and disastrously astray? Every time a decision is made, you just want to tell the actors to change their mind...but the truth is people make bad decisions all the time, and an ever-deepening spiral is difficult to climb out of or stop. Can things get so bad that a good person could consider giving up their life in either a metaphorical or literal sense? Maybe. Bill Paxton turns in a strong performance; his character is "the smart one" who keeps trying to do the right thing. Bridget Fonda is his wife whose advice tends to be on the bad side, and Billy Bob Thornton (who also appeared with Paxton in ONE FALSE MOVE and TOMBSTONE) serves up - no exaggeration - an incredible performance as Paxton's "dumb" brother. At least that's how it's supposed to look, and how it looks on the surface. Jacob (Thornton) is slow, perhaps, but obviously smart in a way Hank (Paxton) simply cannot grasp. Hank's made up his mind that HE has to make the decisions because he is the strong one, the smart one...but many times he doesn't even heed his own advice, which only serves to make things worse. The film is strongest in its character interactions; one person's words can change the way another acts which can change the shape of a conversation and ultimately... well, let's just say this movie is full of decisions, impulsive or not, and almost all of them are bad ones, and it is through dialogue that we are privy to the workings of the brains of these people, we can follow their logic and understand their decisions even when we know they're wrong. Okay, so why 4 stars? It's not a perfect film, no, but it deserves a very high rating. What gets it a solid 4 out of 5 is the DVD presentation - nothing special, no extras apart from a trailer. I would especially have welcomed a commentary from the the director Sam Raimi and writer Scott B Smith who adapted his own novel. Unfortunately that's something we'll have to wish for in the future. So for now, A SIMPLE PLAN is a great film but a simple DVD.
Rating:
Summary: .
Review: Although awfully Fargo-esque, Sam Raimi's low-key, snow-dusted thriller manages to stand on its own merits. The strongest elements of the film are the carefully built and well-exploited character tensions (which revolve around matters of class and family), and Billy Bob Thornton's exceptional performance. There is probably a twist too many, and some of turns the film takes are not very believable if thought about carefully, but on the whole, this is an engaging and intelligent thriller with compelling performances. Nifty score, too. To others who enjoyed the subtle character tensions that made scenes like the "drunk confession" so much fun, I recommend the films scripted or directed by David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, the Edge -- NOT the Spanish Prisoner, though.)
Rating:
Summary: Sam Raimi pleases new fans with story and plot and old fans
Review: with that good ole fashion Raimi gore. what a great movie, easy to idenify with the characters as most of us could easily be in the same situation. Billy Bob Thornton shows once again he is one of the best actors out there. Bill Paxton finally shows he can act, very good. this is just great, the scene where Thornton and Paxton try to get their friend drunk and confess of murder is hands down one of the best cinematic moments ever. also this movie has one of the best shotgun scenes ever filmed(next to the explosive head shot in Evil Dead 2, Raimi's best film). nice to see Sam hasent forgot his old fans. and also for hardocore fans, look for the 77 Oldsmobile in this movie, its even in For Love of The Game and all his others. yup, thats the same car that Ash drove in the hyper gore Evil Dead flicks. a classic film, a must see.
Rating:
Summary: A Three-Pronged Moral Lesson
Review: This movie really shows how, after taking the $4.4 million found in a crashed plane, each character is ultimately desirious and hungry for seperate things: Bill Paxton's character is desperate not to get caught, Bridgett Fonda's character is desperate for the wealth itself, and Billy Bob Thornton's character is heart breakingly desperate for a wife to share his life with, which he thinks the money can bring him. This film displayed to me all of the different things money can mean to people, from security and safety to outright greed. It taught me that there are all sorts of ways to view money, although none worth killing innocents for.
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