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Summary: A Film that Shows You Nothing is Ever Simple. Ever.
Review: "A Simple Plan" isn't your ordinary thriller where you know exactly who's the bad guy and who's the good guy. This isn't the type of thriller where you know right way who's pulling the strings. "A Simple Plan" is a one-of-a-kind thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire movie. You are just about to find out that sometimes good people do evil things.This movie is about three men who stumple upon a crashed airplane. Inside is a dead pilot....and a bag full of cash. They can keep the money. It's not stealing......is it? Well, they're about to find out how something that seems so simple can end up costing whole lot more than any of them can even imagine. The acting is great in this movie. Paxton and Thornton do a really good job in their roles. Bridget Fonda also does a great job, being the wife who eggs her husband on and devises all of the plans and schemes for him on how to keep the money. Sam Raimi does an outstanding job as director. The cinematography is also breathtaking. What I really like about this movie is the story. It's a very thought-provoking and disturbing thriller that has numerous twists and turns along the way. And the ending.....wow. You're not going to believe how this movie will end. The DVD is great when it comes to sound and picture quality. Especially picture quality. One of those DVDs where you see the picture clear as crystal. It lacks in special features, as always the case with Paramount. So don't have your heart set on that aspect of the DVD. "A Simple Plan" is a brilliant thriller with a very clever and well-structured plot. If you like thrillers with edge and disturbing twists, this is the movie for you. A great story, a great plot, a great cast of characters, and overall a great movie.
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Summary: The book is better
Review: "A Simple Plan" could have been a truly great suspense movie and drama -- if it had only stayed true to the book. It seems weird to say it because the movie was written by the same man who wrote the book, but he had it right the first time. The movie never really lets you feel the full impact of just what the characters have done, and how far they will go, to keep the money. If you really want to see the depths the human spirit can sink to for money you should read the book.
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Summary: PAXTON AND THORNTON ARE BRILLIANT! A "SIMPLE" MASTERPIECE!
Review: "A Simple Plan" is quite possibly my favorite movie of all time. The movie takes us through a dark and foreboding ride through the darkness of the human soul. The consequences of greed unfold perfectly, all of them attached with a questionable resolution, and when the problem is solved you are forced to think if you would have done that same thing had you been in Paxton's position. I read the book first and loved it, and then became tentative as to whether I should rent the film, afraid that it would seem lame in comparison. I was surprised but pleased with the outcome. The movie was as good (if not better) than the book. Sam Raimi did an excellent job directing and Scott Smith did a wonderful job converting his novel to the screen. "A Simple Plan" is a great film that should definitely be on everyone's Top 10 List.
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Summary: Enjoyble examination into the psychology of human rapacity
Review: "A Simple Plan" is quite simply one of the finest cinematic characterizations concerning the nature of human greediness. Furthermore, it plainly, yet bitingly reveals that which suggests the concealment of one problem leads to a much deeper and more complex obstacle. Sam Raimi's directorial technique is professional, admirable, and extremely effective. The acting is genuinely believable (specifically Billy Bob Thorton's portrayal of Jacob). It is an unquestionably sophisticated film, worthy of its thrilling subject matter, and certainly one of the best pictures of 1998. Do yourself a favor and purchase "A Simple Plan." It will definitely get under your skin.
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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.
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Summary: ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE 90s.
Review: 'A SIMPLE PLAN' is a contemporary masterpiece. The story concerns two brothers and a friend who discover over $4,000 in unmarked bills in the wreckage of a small plane. Soon their own greed, suspicion, and paranoia set in which leads to murders and cover-ups. Driven by remarkable performances and symbolic, chilling cinematography, the suspense never lets up. What impressed me most about this stark neo-noir was the human characters, created to be so real that you feel like you know them. The writing is brilliant too, full of power which increases the brooding mood. Probing deep into moral ambiguity unlike any film of recent years, don't miss 'A SIMPLE PLAN'-its one of the greatest!
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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: Raimi responds to FARGO, turns in his finest drama to date.
Review: (Beware the tides...there be spoilers ahead.) A SIMPLE PLAN is a heart-rending drama about the impact a small fortune can have on ordinary people. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton play brothers Hank and Jacob Mitchell, who, along with Jacob's friend Lou (Brent Briscoe) find a downed airplane with a dead pilot and a cache of $1.4 million inside. Guessing it to be drug money, they decide the loss will likely go unreported. So Hank proposes a simple plan that will allow them keep it: he will hide it until he feels it's safe to split it up. In the meantime, the three should go about their business as though the money doesn't exist. To ensure compliance, Hank threatens to burn the money if suspicion starts to fall on them. Hank is the first one to break the vow of silence: he tells his pregnant wife, Sarah (Bridget Fonda), beginning by asking her a hypothetical question about found money. "I'd return the money," Sarah professes, earnestly. Then Hank shows her the money. Her immediate and dramatic reversal of position foreshadows the film's chilling climax. It's the first of many examples of the film's most thought-provoking observation: that all the plans and good intentions in the world are meaningless if we can't back them up when it counts. It doesn't take long before the factions begin to form--Hank and Sarah vs. Lou and his wife, Nancy (Becky Ann Baker)--and poor, simple Jacob, who just wants to buy back his father's land, is caught in the middle, having to choose between his brother (with whom he has little in common and next to whom he feels inferior) and his best friend. It is a credit to Raimi, Paxton and Thornton that the audience is kept guessing where Jacob's loyalties lie until the last possible moment. Thornton turns in a stunning performance as a simple man forced to choose between family and friend, life and death. The magnitude of his portrayal is most poignant in a tiny scene where he sits alone in a bar, playing with two shot glasses. No words necessary--the image speaks volumes of desolation and despair. Not everyone will want to own this movie--it's brilliant, compelling, and features a wealth of stunning performances, but it ain't a fun time. Watch it when you're looking to wrestle with some philosophical questions--you might come away wondering how well you know yourself.
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Summary: Everything but a "Simple Plan"
Review: ...P>I loved the way the characters in this film never thought of the drug dealers who would be coming back to get their money. That is the first thing I would have thought of if I discovered the plane. They left behind four million dollars in cash. Didn't it strike anyone that someone would be back to recover it? Gary Cole plays the F.B.I. impersonator who comes to pick up the money. All of the actors Thorton, Paxton etc. have done a great job portraying contemporary people in a small town. It's such a good movie because I can see this happening in real life. A bunch of guys finding millions and killing one another to get it all. It's a good moral tale that shows one that greed is the greatest killer of all.
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Summary: A Story That Can Be Heard By Every Living Person...
Review: 1998's 'A Simple Plan' is a brilliantly acted movie that focuses on the most basic of human failings...greed. When three hikers (Bill Paxton, his mentally challenged brother Billy Bob Thornton and Brent Briscoe) stumble upon an isolated fortune coved by snow, attitudes and first impressions of each character immediately begin to change. Even for the most honest person of the group, the person most doubtfull to keep the money, four million in hard cash drives the three to devise a plan that will ultimately tear themselves and the small town apart. The movie is true to the mindset of each character as certain obstacles come between them and their destiny, and Billy Bob Thornton's talent combines with his underlying motive to make him once again the most believable aspect of the movie. To tell the truth I think the movie should've added something at the end, in other words once you've seen the role of the person who closes the chapter on the money...you, or at least I wondered if it was enough after all he had done. It's a great and very accurate adaptation of the one thing everyday that drives most of us to do things that are not quite right, even if they are not of the pure evil that fuels the greed of these three small town men.
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