Best Laid Plans (1999)

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I kept looking at the young woman and thinking, she looks like a fuller-faced Reese Witherspoon. Turns out it was Reese Witherspoon - I hadn't looked at the cast list. The film begins with Nick (Alessandro Nivola) and his college friend Bryce (Josh Brolin) in a bar. A young woman walks by, and you can see Bryce checking her out. Nick leaves, and while he's asleep, he gets a panicked call from Bryce. The woman has threatened to call the police and claim rape. Bryce has tied her up and duct taped her mouth because he's terrified and doesn't know what to do.Eventually the film flashes back to an earlier time. When his father dies, Nick assumes his father will leave him a lot of money which will help him get out of the one-horse town in which he lives. Unfortunately, his father died and left him with nothing as he was $240,000 in debt to the IRS, plus other debts.When he gets an opportunity to make some real cash by stealing money from a drug dealer, Nick agrees. Somehow the dealer finds out he's involved and has him picked up. He tells Nick if Nick pays him back, he'll forget about what happened. Nick is frantic to get the money since he no longer has his cut.Pretty good noir with good acting. Someone here commented that Alessandro Nivola is dull. I liked him because he played the character as if he was capable of anything.Not a stretch for Reese Witherspoon; the other people were fine.I liked the film, I thought it was well done, and I like that certain things were revealed in the beginning. I loved the scene where the commercial for the recycling place came on television, and Nick is so desperate to get Bryce's back to it. Very funny.In better hands, this could have been a blockbuster. But it's still good.

Well, Reese Witherspoon is in this, Josh Brolin looks more nerdy than he ever has before or since and Pollax Troy (Alessandro Nivola) talks like a normal human being in this wannabe noir that is not quite as clever as it thinks it is.If I went through the whole plot, we could be here for a while, so, in a nutshell it's about a young couple Nick (Nivola) and Lissa (Witherspoon) who try to blackmail their friend Bryce (Brolin) into allowing them to steal a rare Abraham Lincoln signed "Bill of Release" from a mansion Bryce is minding. The path the film takes to get us into the mansion, and then out and to the finish line is particularly convoluted and, while the resolution doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence, it will leave many asking "is that it?" The film has the typical late 90s indie style, with a lot happening in darkness and little lighting. Some of the staging is obvious, but is in general effective at establishing mood and maintaining the desired atmosphere.On the acting side, Nivola is a long way from Face/ Off and a lot more at home as our down-on-his-luck loser protagonist. He manages to keep his character sympathetic throughout, in spite of being a deeply flawed human being. Josh Brolin is deliberately cringeworthy as the unlikeable, socially inept Bryce, while Witherspoon is decent as Lissa, a character I had a hard time connecting with at all through no fault of hers. Every actor seems aware of the type of movie they've signed on for.Best Laid Plans is a pretty small movie, and not essential viewing, but it does do enough right to be an enjoyable viewing experience, if a little light upon repeat viewings.

I have only seen the version that plays on TV on the channel FX, but there is a yellow sign that says "play sex games with a child" in black lettering, and there is also more text below it but I could not read it. Also there are two stick figures, one adult looking down at a child. I swear on my life that this is really in the movie, and it was viewable in the scene for like 5-10 seconds where there was metal fencing, I think the recycle plant, but not sure. I am trying to think of a good reason this was in the movie, perhaps some kind of joke or a warning sign. This kinda tripped me out and I really want to know why the hell this was in the movie. I searched google but found nothing, I am going to download the movie, and take a still frame, I will call it "best-laid-plans-sexgames", so search that name on google, I will post to a few hosting sites. I saw this movie a few times, but did not see the sign until today when I watched it.

Great plot spoiled with a rather disappointing ending. Reese is fantastic in this movie and there she shows that legally blond was only a bit of her acting ability. The movie is about desperate people that is willing to take desperate measures to get out of trouble, even if that means getting loved ones down with us. The movie surprises the viewer most of the time, the twists are intelligent and unexpected, the dialogs are not great but do not have any pretensions either. The movie could have done without the last twist, a lame ending to an otherwise good story). I understand there is an alternative ending and would like to know what happens in that ending. Recommended if you like Reese and if you have no other movie to watch...