A SIMPLE PLAN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Three working-class men find a plane
wreck with four million dollars and start making
plans for how to keep money for themselves. But
the bounty is too great for three men to split
amicably. Sam Raimi makes a film in the style of
the Coen Brothers with a lot of locality atmosphere
and understanding of his characters. Rating: 7 (0
to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 20 positive, 1 negative, 4 mixed
Sam Raimi grew up a close friend of the Coen Brothers. All three want into filmmaking. The Coen Brothers specialized in crime films. Raimi, focusing on a younger audience, made a variety of films, but he was best known for his horror film trilogy, the EVIL DEAD films. Now Sam Raimi is moving into Coen brothers territory with a serious and dark crime thriller set somewhere in the frozen North Central states in the cold of winter. The plot is a familiar one. Three people have come into a lot of money they must keep secret. But three is a big crowd when it comes to four and a half million dollars. The setting is like FARGO, and the basic situation is like THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. The plotting is like a serious version of the too-recent VERY BAD THINGS, but serious makes all the difference.
Scott B. Smith wrote the screenplay based on his own novel. The opening image of the film is a fox making a quick raid on a hen house, snatching what it can get and running with it. While that really is the event that sets the plot in motion, the "grab what you can and run" scene also sets the tone for what is to come. In A SIMPLE PLAN Hank (played by Bill Paxton) works in the feed and grain, but hopes his college education will bring him something better for his wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) and the daughter he will have in a few days. Sarah has learned to accept Jacob, Hank's grungy brother (Billy Bob Thornton), but not Jacob's redneck friend Lou (Brent Bisscoe). Jacob and Lou similarly are a bit contemptuous of Lou's comparatively manicured existence. Ordinarily these tensions would never be spoken, but events are about to stress all the relationships.
One frosty winter day Hank, Jacob, and Lou come upon a plane crashed in the woods. On board they find a dead pilot and a satchel with 44,000 one hundred-dollar bills. If all three people can cooperate perfectly it should be no problem hanging onto the money. Right? But of course the presence of the money will test each of the men's relationships with the others and Hank's relationship with Sarah. Sarah, Jacob, and Lou each has a different idea of what to do with the money and they do not all mesh. Hank wants to wait until things die down and then leave town. Jacob sees the money as his opportunity to buy back his father's farm and make it work again. Lou is in unhealthy debt and wants to pay off some loans and live high. Hank will discover entirely different people inside the skins of the people closest to him. And one of them is himself. As Sarah observes to Hank late in the film, "Nobody would ever believe that you would be capable of doing what you've done." The plot is composed like a chain with each event leading to the next and all lead to chaos.
As in FARGO, the icy setting becomes a character in the film itself. These are people who are worn down from just fighting the climate. It casts a pall over the entire film. Raimi accentuates the gray of the weather by filming with muted, depressing colors. A SIMPLE PLAN is a compelling ride through an alien moral landscape. While much of the chaos that is the plot is predictable, some of the places the plot takes us are quite unexpected. I rate it 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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