A Simple Plan (1998)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Sam Raimi's snowbound thriller is quite simply one of his best films, up there with the first two EVIL DEAD movies in terms of entertainment value. It's also the director's most mature film, a piece which shows that he has progressed in the last twenty years - unlike John Carpenter, who has alternatively been going downhill since then! The plot of this film constantly twists and turns all over the place, offering plenty of scenes brimming with tension and suspense.Like most gems these day, this was missed by audiences who were probably lured into watching the latest no-brain blockbuster instead of this classic. It's a real shame when talent is ignored by mainstream audiences, especially when the film in question is so darned good. Raimi makes the most of his chilly locations, offering up the same kind of isolated cold as found in FARGO, and also works wonders with a relatively small cast. Bill Paxton is engaging as the everyman who becomes embroiled in murder and is forced to kill multiple people; Paxton may not be a brilliant actor but I've always enjoyed his performances. However, the real shining star here is Billy Bob Thornton, who gives an accurate and moving portrayal of Jacob, Paxton's simple brother who is unable to cope with the complex lies he is forced to tell.The rest of the cast all do very good jobs, with a surprising turn from Bridget Fonda as Paxton's wife who is just as corrupt as her husband. Gary Cole also gets to silently brood and strip wallpaper with his baleful eyes in a thoroughly nasty turn. You might be mistaken for thinking this is typical family fare, but it's not, and things get very dark when people start dying. But the film's greatest achievement is slowly creating the people on screen and giving life to them in character-building scenes which really make us care and feel concern. Quite simply, this is one of the best thrillers I've seen of the decade, and I can't recommend it any more highly.

Hank (Bill Paxton) is a hard worker with loving pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) in a small Minnesota town. Hank goes on a drive with his brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob's friend Lou (Brent Briscoe). After crashing their car, they go off into the woods and find a crashed small plane. In it, they find a bag full of money. Hank wants to go to the police but he is convinced by the other two to keep the money. Hank comes up with a simple plan. He hides the money until the plane is discovered. If nobody comes looking for it, they will split up the $4.4 million among the three of them.Like the title suggests, this is a relatively simple movie. Of course, Hank's plan is never going to work especially with those two idiot loudmouth friends. Anyways, Hank breaks his promise not to tell his wife almost immediately. The tension builds and builds as these bumbling idiots get into a worst and worst situation. The snowy landscape gives the movie its desolate doomed atmosphere. Billy Bob does a great idiot but Bill Paxton's needy morality is the kicker. He starts out as a reasonable everyday man with morals. Director Sam Raimi fills every scene with a threatening tension.

(59%) A largely paint by numbers morality tale in a similar shape to the much better Fargo, featuring a good central performance from Bill Paxton and more than decent support backing him up. The premise is one of such dramatic substance and fuel for "What would you do?" type debate that even a lousy writer such as Skip Woods, or Eli Roth could squeeze at least some intrigue out. Where this does come off the rails a bit revolve around the character's decisions being clearly wrong-footed from the start. And even though the characters featured are supposed to be dimwitted, it still makes for a film that doesn't really push the premise to any real limit because the characters couldn't make more of a hash of things even if they tried. This is still an interesting, well made film, and it's worth a look, but it just doesn't quite make it as a true future classic.

One of Sam Raimi's better films, "A Simple Plan" finds a group of Midwesterners stumbling upon a Pandora's box of ransom money out in the woods. Like John Huston's "Treasure of The Sierra Madre", or Erich von Stroheim's "Greed", the greed of our covetous heroes quickly mounts. They concoct increasingly elaborate plans to keep the found money, but these plans degenerate into several farcical murders.At its best, "A Simple Plan" watches as ordinary, happy families fall prey to temptation. At its worst, the film eschews plausible tragedy for incredulous noir violence. The film stars a fine Bill Paxton and an overacting Billy Bob Thornton. With its wintry locales and vein of black humour, the film has been compared to the Coen Brothers' "Fargo". The Coens wrote and edited a number of Raimi's own early features.7.9/10 – See "The Drop" and "The Lookout".