Rating: 
Summary: Honesty is the best policy, or is it?
Review: A simple plan may not be so simple when money is at hand. It is the winter time, and everything is covered in snow. In a small town where life is as simple, and as pleasurable as can be, and all anyone cares about is eachother, things can go elsewhere. When three friends stumple upon a plane in the snow with a bag consisting of 4 million dollars, what are they to do with it? Thinking that it's money from a drug deal gone bad, the three get nervous that anyone else might see it. Promising to split it at a later date, They give the money to Hank (Bill Paxton), thinking they can trust him with it. But things go wrong. Very wrong. When greed becomes obvious, Hank and his preagnant wife, Sarah (Bridget Fonda), start to plot against Lou, the more honest one. Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), Hank's somewhat innocent brother, is forced to play along with the couples scheme. Maybe it would've been easier to just have kept their mouths shut, and not said a word, for the truth is about to revealed where the money really came from. The acting was great, especially by Brigdet Fonda; hadn't seen her in a while. This story may as well be true. Things like this happen everyday. Greed begins to well up in people's eye's, and they want it all to themselves. A somewhat intense movie, yet somehow very real. The plot was great. Still a good movie to watch when your alone, in the dark.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 Stars For Some Realism In An Otherwise Contrived Tale
Review: While the straight-laced Bill Paxton slowly watched things spin ridiculously out of control in this caper-plot film, I give it credit for the generally realistic portrayal of a couple of truly stupid people. For instance, after three guys find $4 million in a crashed plane and agree to keep it secret (and keep the money themselves), a local police officer happens along and visits with Bill Paxton, who desperately wants the cop to simply leave. However, Billy Bob Thornton pops up and asks, "Did you tell him about the plane?" Such monumental stupidity was, in my experience, quite genuine -- I definitely have known people, a couple of them relatives, who were every bit this brainless. And it really makes you wonder who is less intelligent -- the two nitwits whose mental deprivation leads the group into an escalating fiasco, or the college-educated accountant who trusts two such numbskulls to follow his orchestration. This film is worth seeing once, just for the characters' stupidity, but you'll likely feel no need ever to watch it again.
Rating: 
Summary: A simple plan is simply terrible
Review: A Simple Plan starred one of my favorite, most underrated actors in Bill Paxton. Unfortunately, I had the poor fate of being forced to watch this terrible film in class. So allow me to warn all those who intend to buy this: don't purchase this film, it's not as great as you may think and you will not walk away from it satisfied because it is a highly disturbing picture that tried to create moral values by destroying others. I really enjoyed how this film began, three guys, two of whom are brothers, discover a downed plane and inside of it is a suit case full of cash, millions worth. Paxton's character is the only one out of the three of them who wants to turn the cash into the police, he's a stand up, moral guy who wants to do what's right. But he caves in to his brother and buddy and they decide to form a simple plan: if nobody puts an ad out to claim it they keep the money for themselves. That's the "simple plan." Gee, I guess the director thought all of us viewers were morons because I wonder what happens instead? Bridget Fonda's character is a flake: she starts off as this moral wife who attempts to be the conscience of her husband, which is Paxton, but almost instantly becomes this greedy female dog who hordes over the cash. A complete turn around in character. What's disturbing is this isn't the only character in this film that completely turns around and abandons all forms of a moral guidance. It's almost as if nobody in this film has any back bone, any moral fiber, that they are instead controlled by money. As much as greed is a serious flaw in people, making people who start out as moral good guys/girls and instantly transforming them into Scrooges is rather cliche for this movie and I think unreal. Fonda's sudden turn doesn't nearly bother me as the drastic, disturbing turn of Bill Paxton's character. As the movie progresses, Paxton's character is practically responsible for two deaths. The first death is the worst, where he MURDERS an old man. How can we possibly sympathize with a guy who committs cold blooded murder? I understand the objective of this film, but even films that play off the dark side of mankind need a character we can trust, enjoy, and sympathize because we know he's at least TRYING to do the right thing. Paxton starts out as trying to do the right thing, then he shifts to trying to do the wrong thing. This isn't character development, despite what most of you may think. This is called stepping out of character because Paxton's character just switches, it doesn't develop. There's a difference. In fact Paxton's character, the initial character dies in my mind because he isn't even a shade of the character Paxton finishes the film with. I also thought the violence in this film was totally unnecessary. It was totally out of control and very yahoo like. I mean, Paxton's best friend tries to kill him with a sawed off shot-gun? Then his buddy's wife reaches into a cookie jar and pulls out a revolver and also tries to kill Paxton? But Paxton blows her guts out in defense? Then Paxton's character, mercilessly, blows the brains out of the bad guy in the end? And the kicker, the absolute worst part of the film is when Paxton's brother gets all depressed in the end and he wants to die so he asks Paxton to shoot him. And he does! He shoots his own brother! What is this film?! What is up with Paxton's character? He goes around blowing people away, he began as a character with a moral back bone and yet he commits more murders and is responsible for more deaths than Ted Bundy! And people think his character is sympathetic? This is an awful film. I understand the moral point about greed, but while trying to teach us that point the film makes the characters totally unbelievable by making them switch into these dark, evil people who go around shooting their own family members! I mean this is insane, I can't believe people actually think this is a good movie. I give it two stars because at least it goes through with its lesson, unfortunately it costed itself three stars by giving us characters we can't possibly relate to or sympathize with because most of us wouldn't turn 180 degrees because we found some loot. We may horde over it, but would we be willing to kill and murder for it? Think about it, because according to this film you would.
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie!!, light comedy.
Review: I had to see the movie two times to fully appreciate it. The first time I fell asleap to it, (I was sleepy heh) but I will for sure keap it. I believe the story, and the message of the flick were great. The actors did a great job pertaining to their parts. Billy Bob Thorton played a great hill billy lol. The music was nothing crazy good, definitly check the movie out, it must be pretty hard to find I never heared of it until now. -Luke Thuemmel-
Rating:
Summary: SPIDERWOMAN
Review: A SIMPLE PLAN is the first adult film of director Samuel Raimi. No more over-referenced or bubblegum movies. So let's be fair, A SIMPLE PLAN is quite a winner. With a remarkable performance (once again !) of Billy Bob Thornton -the Al Pacino of the nineties- which will stay in the annals of the Film Noir genre, with a Bill Paxton unable to stop the wave of brutal deaths his deep honesty has produced and with a venomous Bridget Fonda in an angel/devil role, Samuel Raimi has, in my opinion, directed the cast of the year 1998. With FARGO and AFFLICTION, A SIMPLE PLAN is the third snowy movie I've seen during the last months. It seems that cold winters produce an eruption of hidden fantasies among american citizens. But we're not in Sweden, in a Bergman movie, problems are not solved after long philosophical discussions in front of a warm fire. No, here we rather act than talk. So blood is flowing a lot in A SIMPLE PLAN, - the Samuel Raimi touch I suppose -, and solely a brief commentary of Bill Paxton at the beginning of the movie could be considered as a hint of a psychological dimension of the characters involved. But let's not despair, it's the first Samuel Raimi movie that is not made in priority for the drive-ins audience and it contains a lot of promises. Overall a very good movie for a cold saturday night. A nightmarish DVD.
Rating:
Summary: What would you do?
Review: A Simple Plan is by far one of the most touching and most humane films ever made as it accounts what happens when a trio of old friends, Hank, Jacob, and Lou, stumble into the woods and chancely discover a plane with a rotting corpse inside and a duffle bag filled with over 4 million dollars. Each man's character changes for the worse as greed overcomes their senses and kills their goodness. Contains some of the finest directing, acting and writing you'll ever find in a movie. Also includes some symbolically evil scenes (including crows in the woods, and a fox snatching a bundle of chickens) which deepen the feel of tragedy,evilness,and paranoia in the movie. You'll never look at money the same way again. When feeling nothing in this movie could ever happen, ask yourself: What would I do?
Rating:
Summary: Billy Bob Thornton's Performance is Superb!
Review: Crisp direction and the outstanding performance of Billy Bob Thornton lends this somewhat run-of-the-mill plot just the suspense and mystery it needs to keep your attention. Great location filming also add to the film's ambiance. The simplicity of the plot's premise makes the story engaging; the lack of credibility looming beneath the two-dimensional qualities of the characters threatens to ruin it. Overall, worth the admission price and enjoyable, but not a masterpiece by any stretch.
Rating:
Summary: You Pay For You Get
Review: It was a simple plan and on paper it should've worked. That's the premise of one of the shocking, sad, and brilliant movies I've ever seen. Bill Paxton plays the "smart" brother living a respectable life with his wife played by Bridget Fonda. Billy Bob Thorton plays the wastrel brother, the town drunk. The love and tension between these two builds up to climax that you will never see coming. When the brothers and a friend find drug money in a crashed plane it seems like a godsend. Instead they end up turning on each other and Bill Paxton's character learns things about himself and his wife that is almost too much to bear.
The best thing about this movie has got to be Billy Bob Thornton. Is there nothing this man can't do? Even in a bad movie, which this isn't he stands out like a diamond. Definitely check this movie out.
Rating:
Summary: A Simple Plan - A torridly boring, simple movie!
Review: Bought several months ago and placed on the DVD rack to be forgotten until now. What is one to do; it seemed interesting when it was picked up at the store. Apparently not the case since it was forgotten on the rack. One would think that with Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Bridgette Fonda, an excellent and suspenseful drama could be made. For this viewer, that was not the case. For the better part of this movie, I'll quote a friend and state that I was "torridly bored." The only saving grace for this movie, in my opinion, would be about the last twenty to thirty minutes. One cannot help but ask themselves, as this movie trudges along, can these guys make it any worse for themselves? The premise: Welcome to small town America, where Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton play brothers who go on a small trip to lay flowers on their fathers grave. Along for the ride is Billy Bob's buddy Lou, played by Brent Briscoe. On their way back to town, they swerve off the road to avoid hitting a fox. Billy Bob and Brent's characters, being the astute rednecks that they are, decide that they must go into the woods to shoot the offending fox that caused them to wreck. In the woods, they run across a crashed plane. To their surprise, there is a bag containing over four million dollars in the plane. They quickly come up with "A Simple Plan" as far as what to do with the money, in the hopes of keeping it. What follows is a movie that, seemingly has a halfway decent plot, but just doesn't pan out for the better part of the movie. It just doesn't capture the interest, as it trudges along, leaving you wondering if it was time to change the cat litter or not. {ssintrepid}
Rating:
Summary: The Snowball Effect....
Review: This review refers to the Paramount(Widescreen Collection) DVD of "A Simple Plan"....... What would YOU do if you stumbled onto a fortune? Four million dollars to be exact! Would your first impulse be to turn it in? Or maybe you could convince yourself it's yours for the taking! If that's the case you'll definately need a plan..... It is the dead of winter, three men in a snow covered nature preserve are tossing snowballs at each other. One snowball hits something...when the snow is shaken off the object the men discover a small plane has crashed. Immediatley they rush over to check it out. It's too late for the pilot, but in the plane a bag containing a huge sum of money is discovered.After a REAL short discussion about turning it in, they convince themselves that this is drug money, and who would know if they kept it, right? Oh by the way these are not the brightest guys on the face of the earth! So they devise "a simple plan", which turns into a complicated maze of lies, deceit, and Murder. The innocent snowball has become an avalanche of evil, pitting brother against brother,friend against friend, and even husband against wife. It's an edge of your seat gripping drama that will have you wondering what could possibly happen next. IS money the root of all evil? You decide...... Bill Paxton(Hank) and Billy Bob Thornton(Jacob) are the brothers. Hank the supposedly "educated" one seems oblivious to the needs of the more simple Jacob. Thornton won several awards for his outstanding work in this film as Best Supporting Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics Assoc and The Boston Society of Film Critics to name a few. Brent Briscoe also turns in a great performance as Lou Chambers, the friend who's greed gets the best of him. Bridget Fonda is excellent as the good wife who becomes more cunning than all the others in her quest to keep the money. The film is directed by Sam Raimi, who has given us such diverse works as "Spiderman" and "For the Love of the Game" and makes his mark here in bringing us a terrific thriller. A marvelous screenplay by Scott Smith and the always wonderful score by Danny Elfman add to making this a most unique fim to view. Paramount's transfer to DVD is of a good quality. A sharp, clear, and bright picture in widescreen makes the snowy scenery as well as the story an enjoyable experience to watch. Depending on your set up you can choose to have the sound in Dolby Dig 5.1 surround or stereo surround.There are no special features to speak of if that's what you're looking for but if you have seen this film and know you like it, you will be happy with the way it looks and sounds. If you haven't seen it yet, your in for a treat. So what do ya think? Go for it?? Yeah go for it!(of course I mean the DVD,,,not the money!).........Laurie
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