A Simple Plan A movie review by Thomas Skogestad
(Re-)view January 10, 1999 at Cinemateket, Oslo, Norway http://www.nfi.no/nfi/cinematek/
Starring: Bill Paxton as Hank Mitchell Bridget Fonda as Sarah, Hank's wife Billy Bob Thornton as Jacob Mitchell, Hank's brother
Directed by Sam Raimi (The Quick and the Dead, Darkman, The Evil Dead series) Written by Scott Smith, based on his novel Cinematography by Alar Kivilo
Rating: *** out of ****
MPAA rating: R for violence and language. (The book however is, as I remember, more explicit)
Expectation rating: A bit worse than expected (mainly because I found the middle part to be a bit dull). Roger Ebert gave it a four star review, and while he is a critic that uses the full scale, and I often agree -- such as Dark City being the best film of 1998, he must have seen a better film. I read the book about five years ago and hugely enjoyed it.
The opening of A Simple Plan reminded me a bit of The Sweet Hereafter. The landscape is snowy and cold, and is filmed what I feel is in a rather crisp manner (which also reminds me of Fargo (which I loathed)). One can almost sense the cold. But the movie far from the eye popping delights of The Quick and the Dead, instead Raimi has made a more constrained film -- which probably is for the better. This is probably not a movie that would have been improved by lots of odd shots.
The movie also reminded me of Affliction, as the lead characters all seem to be hoping for and seeing a possibility to lead a better life than their father, and they see a chance for such a dream to come true. This chance is uncovered in a snow covered field, where an airplane has crash landed. In the plane three men find «The American dream ... in a gym bag.» Affliction too was set in a snowy landscape.
It really seems very simple. Just hold on to the money until spring, and if no one claims it, they'll be safe to spend it and their hope of experiencing the American dream can come true.
But the snow melts, and so might several of the character's hopes. As in «Return to Paradise», some of the characters are presented with a chance to do the right thing. But doing the right thing might not result in a better result than something more selfish.
The movie's biggest strength is that it fact makes sense. I have seen many movies based on books that just seem like selected scenes from the book visualized, eschewing anything remotely resembling a coherent story -- for example Clear and Present Danger. The biggest problem seems to over-familiarization with the story. The writer perhaps feels that he doesn't have to present scenes that are clear to him, but the lack of which only baffles an audience which has not read the book.
This is definitely not the problem with A Simple Plan, even though the screenplay is by the book's author. The movie is always clear on where it's going, and always makes sense. I'm sue a lot was cut, but really I can't remember what. Even a minor scene involving a man complaining that he has paid for too much grains is included. The man only comes in on Mondays, but he claims that he has been charged for one purchase too many. Turns out ... well, see the movie.
One should be warned against seeing the trailer. It reveals several scenes from the ending moments (which yes, like in the book, it is a downer), several plot developments, and much of the beginning. But much of this is not spelled directly out during the trailer, so if you're lucky, you'll have forgotten about all of this when you see the movie.
-- thomas.skogestad@jusstud.uio.no
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