A Simple Plan

This review will probably contain some spoilers. I will try to warn the reader in advance before I give anything away but if you have not seen this movie yet you should proceed with caution.I saw this movie in the theater when it was first released. That was fifteen years ago but the film made a lasting impression on me. It was on television this year on Christmas and I caught a portion of it and was reminded of what a great movie it was so I went out and bought it and watched it again from start to finish. The movie is about a group of small towners who find $4 million dollars in a crashed plane and decide to keep it. It seems simple enough: they will hold onto the money until they are sure no one is looking for it. If someone does come looking for it they will burn it. There seems to be little risk but the title is meant to be ironic. Things quickly spin out of control and get very complicated.The plot is fairly simple and straight forward but this movie is much more than the standard crime caper. It is a morality tale about the corrupting influence of money, a meditation on small town despair, family tragedy, and the allure of the American dream. Hank, the primary "protagonist" of the film, seems happy enough when the film opens. He has a steady job, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way. He is well respected and well liked. However, as the film progresses we learn that Hank's happiness is probably only skin deep. His father went bankrupt putting him through college and committed suicide (though Hank is apparently unaware of this, on a conscious level at least), his brother is a lonely alcoholic, and his job is less than fulfilling.Then he finds $4 million dollars and things spiral out of control. Of course, on one level it is an example of how money can corrupt but, I think, it is also about the way we trick ourselves into believing we are happy. It is like Aesop's fable about the sour grapes. The fox is unable to reach the grapes so he tells himself they are too sour. But what if the fox were to have the grapes presented to him on a silver platter? Would he still say they were too sour? This movie is about a group of people who have grapes handed to them on a silver platter and, all of a sudden, they realize they have been dissatisfied with their lives all along. They really wanted the grapes. They just seemed out of reach.SPOILER ALERT. To me, the defining moment of the movie is when Hank decides he is going to take the money back to the plane. He has already committed crimes that he never thought he would be capable of, and he has gotten himself entangled in a web of lies that is threatening to become ever more complex, but his wife, Sarah, talks him out of returning the money. She asks if he really wants to spend the next thirty years of his life working at the feed store, while their daughter is forced to wear hand me down clothes, and Sarah spends her life with a fake smile checking out library books and cooking the same dinner over and over. Suddenly there is a grinning skull of silent despair that becomes visible behind the veneer of happiness at the beginning of the film.ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT. In my opinion, the ending to the movie is perfect. Hank has been forced to commit four murders (killing his own brother in a scene reminiscent of Of Mice and Men) all in an effort to keep the money, and keep the American dream alive, only to find out that the money was meant to pay a ransom and the F.B.I. wrote down the serial numbers for about 5,000 of the bills. Realizing he will never be able to spend the money he burns it as his wife pleads with him to keep it. The ending, to me, has the force of the ancient Greek tragedies. Everything is destroyed, except Hank and Sarah, as they are forced to live out the rest of their days in quiet despair, like Oedipus whiling away his days after gouging out his own eyes.The acting in the movie is superb. Billy Bob Thornton plays a great lonely alcoholic. Jacob is a sad and fairly sympathetic character. Everyone views him as being kind of stupid, but he has a good heart, and he is wiser in some ways than his brother Hank. He understands their own family history (their dad's bankruptcy and suicide) better than Hank and he comes to understand the corrupting influence of the money sooner than Hanks does. Bill Paxton does a great job playing Hank and I was especially impressed by Bridget Fonda's transformation from a loving and moral housewife to a devious and amoral schemer.There are some people who claim the transformation of Hank and Sarah was not believable. There is some truth to that. I understand, at least, where they are coming from. However, I would like to provide an anecdote from my own life in response. A number of years ago I was watching the movie Hotel Rwanda about the genocide that took place in Rwanda and I was, as usual, resting in my own sense of moral superiority in relation to the people who committed those atrocities, when suddenly I realized "I am a human. They are humans. Anything they are capable of, I would be capable of under the right circumstances. Our brains and nervous systems are built the same." (Similar, in substance, to one of my favorite quotes of all time, from the Roman comic playwright Terence “I am human, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”)I actually think that is one of the themes of this movie: that even the most ordinary, and moral, people are potentially capable of anything under the right circumstances. Who can say what we might be capable of if we were in the presence of $4 million? We have all probably daydreamed about a scenario similar to the one in this movie at some point. It is not just pieces of paper dangling in front of our imaginations in those fantasies. It is a whole new life (the same dreams that inspired the conquistadores to risk life and limb searching for a city of gold or a fountain of youth). Those kinds of dreams can wreak havoc (as they did in the case of the conquistadores) and, I think, this movie highlights the often destructive effect of the "American dream" in all of its shapes and forms. It is an extremely powerful dream and has historically proven itself more than capable of driving people to near insanity in its pursuit.Whatever your opinion of this movie, I think one thing that we can learn from this movie is: as much as we might daydream about finding $4 million in the woods, we better hope and pray that those dreams never come true.

Sam Raimi is known for his wacky action adventures such as The Evil Dead trilogy, the Tobey McGuire Spiderman trilogy, Darkman and Drag Me To Hell among several other blockbuster films. This is a well crafted mix of drama and thrills, and it's based on an actual novel......in other words it's an outlier in his library.Two brothers and a friend are out in rural Minnesota in the dead of winter when they stumble on a plane crash that includes a dead body and a duffle bag of cash. Deciding what to do with the money, things begin to get messy when townsfolk start getting killed off, due to greed setting in. Billy Bob Thorton and Bill Paxton are two brothers, with Brent Brisco as the third man. Without spoiling anything, the police get involved rather quickly, which brings in Gary Cole (Office Space) to the scene as the FBI agent. This is a different edge of your seat, but if you're into a slow burner, this is worth the watch. Bridget Fonda stars as Sarah, as the supporting wife, who manages to give off a rather impressive monologue near the end of the movie.It's also worth noting that Danny Elfman does a rather impressive score that perfectly matches with a winterized session that sounds similar to what Mannheim Steamroller might've pulled off for one of their seasonal albums.

Excellent fast service, product came in perfect shape, great movie.

This movie had a great screenplay a great Director great actors everything came together. Don’t miss this film.

Sent movie to a friend..

Maybe along with "Fargo" there could be a new sub-genre called "Red Snow Noir", referring to blood being spilled in snow-clad areas of the Northern Midwest or in the snowy mountains. The Cohen brothers covered the terrain in a straight noir film in "Fargo". In "A Simple Plan", the snow is also stained with blood but there's a bit more character development than in Fargo. "A Simple Plan" has many interesting parallels with both "Fargo" and "Of Mice and Men". The two leads are brothers, one with high intelligence, the other not quite playing with a full deck, like "Of Mice and Men". The leads are in over their heads and end up playing a dangerous game, similar to "Fargo"."A Simple Plan" as the name implies ends up not being simple. Three Midwest guys in a small town in the upper Midwest, two of whom are brothers, Hank and Jacob (Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton) and two of whom are down on their luck, Hank and Lou (Thornton and Brent Briscoe), are driving from the brothers' annual paying respects to their father at his grave during the last days of Christmas/New Years vacation. Lou was just along for the ride. They nearly hit a fox literally robbing the hen-house, and they decide to hunt for the fox. During their pursuit they happen upon a crashed private airplane. The pilot is dead but their cargo makes their heads spin. Within the plane is $4.5 million in cash in $100 bills.Jacob and Lou begin fantasizing what they'll do with the money, and how it will help them get of out of debt. Hank, the more mature of the three, believes they should turn the money in. It seems it's two against one to take the money rather than give it to authorities. Then Hank proposes a compromise, a "plan" if you will. He will agree to divide the loot on condition they don't divvy up the money until Spring. By then they figure that things will die down, and if no one claims the money they can take it and sleep at night. That's the "simple plan".Of course as the name of the story implies, things won't be that "simple". Almost from the get-go they are hit with a metaphorical snow storm. They agree not to tell their wives but when Hank brings the loot home, he spills the beans to his pregnant wife, Sarah (Bridgette Fonda). They decide maybe they should return some of the money to the plane to curb suspicion. Hank decides to solicit the help of Jacob, but unfortunately Jacob is a wild-card. Hank tells his brother he should move the body back to its original position in the plane, but in truth he's placing some of the money back. While Jacob is guarding their car pretending they've had a flat, Hank goes back to the plane wreckage. An old man comes by the car looking for a fox. He claims that Jacob should have seen the fox but Jacob begins arguing and thinks their cover has been blown. He then bludgeons the old man. And from there everything starts to get more complicated."A Simple Plan" is a good ironic title for a very compelling film but certainly not for all tastes. It's Gothic noir in the snow, and if there's any chance Red Snow Noir could be a sub-genre, this would certainly be a viable candidate. The standout performance has to be Billy Bob Thornton as the not-so-bright brother. He doesn't know when to keep mum about the plane and the money and keeps exposing little secrets about their doings to different people. Everything he does is in character. Thornton doesn't play Jacob "too stupid" but stupid enough that the characters keep getting in deeper in the proverbial red snow. His indiscretions will have tragic consequences. This is also probably the best character-driven film directed by Sam Raimi of "Evil" Dead fame. All around an underrated film noir which is worth a second look.

The white winter snows of Minnesota play host to this neat, very good crime thriller. Like the similarly landscaped Fargo, this has a lot more sinister activities going on under the at-first seeming beautiful locations.Bill Paxton and his wife Bridget Fonda (who is heavily pregnant - again echoes of cop Frances McDormand's character in Fargo) and two unemployed, rather dense brothers stumble across a crashed light plane hidden in a snow drift. Inside is $4,400,000 and a dead pilot, with a crow pecking out his eyeball.The movie's title is obvious and apt, the Simple Plan being so simple. No-one knew the plane crashed and there's nothing on the news to suggest missing money. But, of course, plans go awry and even the smallest, tiniest errors of judgement have huge implications. Whilst Paxon's character has a job at a feed mill, the other two, being jobless and in debt want their share straight away.It's a clever, twisting plot, never too obvious or audacious. The characters are all believable and well acted, with Billy Bob Thornton as one of the brothers being Oscar nominated. Also Oscar nominated was the adapted screenplay, confirming both story and script to be top drawer.

American superhero comics today are a bit pretentious. I think that publishers have decided that to legitimise the art form they have to be heavily political or focus on psychology or have writers push the envelope by killing that character who couldn't carry his own title but had a strong fan-following. In doing so, while they do produce some interesting stories, more often they have forgotten how to tell a good adventure story.As such, when I found out that Black Coat Press was reprinting some French comic material I decided to dive in. Comics in France (also known as bandes dessines) are not seen as just kid's stuff and more often than not appear in a graphic album format and more often than not, don't get proper circulation in the UK. However, C.L.A.S.H is not like the work of Moebius. It is a straightforward secret agent story in the mould of the Bond films, the Man from UNCLE and the Avengers, with mad geniuses, underwater facilities, mind-altering drugs and a sexy female agent called Miss Kiss. It shows the kind of imaginative, overblown science fiction concepts of the day, and makes an entertaining page turner.Maybe something was lost in translation, because the dialogue isn't going to make you swoon and never gets above "What's that?", "You fiend", and there isn't much of a sense of humour there. The art isn't flashy but has excellent storytelling and you can tell the difference between the characters' body types and faces. There is also a bonus science fiction story of Silver Shadow.To get down to details, the art is black and white and the book is the size of a normal paperback, rather than that of an american or british trade paperback.But is it worth having? I think it will be of interest to those who are scholarly in their interest in comics and I look forward to getting my hands on other volumes in the Hexagon comics range.

This is for the German BluRay titled 'Ein einfacher Plan'.Unfortunately the print used suffers damage throughout. Black and white specks and in some cases scratches are evident the full runtime, and Interior night scenes are very grainy.Shame as this at the time of writing is the only BluRay release of this amazing film. BBC2 showed the film a few nights ago also using a damaged print. Maybe the source material is now compromised. Sad when the film is by a well known director and less than 20 years old.

In the blurb on the back cover of this dvd, The Express reviewer claims that "It's Shallow Grave meets Fargo but better!". I would suggest that both those films are far superior to this one. Although they have some aspects in common with this film, at nearly two hours duration A Simple Plan is too long by at least half an hour. Some plot strands are highly implausible but can almost be excused given that it is at heart a morality tale. However, the moral is driven home without any of the black humour that makes Fargo so appealing. So, although it's not a bad film and provides a couple of hours entertainment, there are better ones to watch e.g. Blood Simple and the above-mentioned movies.

A great film about three hunting friends who come across a downed plane containing the corpse of the pilot and an awful lot of money.Should they turn it in to the authorities .......or keep it and try and stop their secret from ruining their friendship.Great acting all round ,especiallly from Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton as Paxton's mildly retarded brother, set this film apart from others with similar plotlines.Tension is ratcheted up expertly as the friends' plan slowly starts to unravel.This is a great viewing experience and I highly recomend adding it to your collection.