A Simple Plan (DVD)

...Mitchell (Bill Paxton) works at a Mill in a small Midwest town and Winter has fully settled in when he visits his parent's grave with his brother, Jacob (Billy-Bob Thornton) and Lou (Brent Briscoe) who is a friend of Jacobs. On the way back home a fox (Which looks in a lot better condition than any fox you will see in the UK) runs out in front of the truck and they have a minor accident. Both Jacob and Lou set off to get the fox and Hank tags along ...
...they discover a crash site; a small plane is covered with snow, its pilot dead at the controls. After making their way inside they find a bag with money in it, lots of money, $4.4 million in fact.

Morally correct Hank wants to hand the money in and collect any reward, if there is one. Lou and Jacob whom are both out of work see this as retirement and want to keep the money. "You work for the American Dream, you don't steal it." ... more

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Movie:
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Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton) works at a Mill in a small Midwest town and Winter has fully settled in when he visits his parent's grave with his brother, Jacob (Billy-Bob Thornton) and Lou (Brent Briscoe) who is a friend of Jacobs. On the way back home a fox (Which looks in a lot better condition than any fox you will see in the UK) runs out in front of the truck and they have a minor accident. Both Jacob and Lou set off to get the fox and Hank tags along for an impromptu mission into the woods. In the woods they discover a crash site; a small plane is covered with snow, its pilot dead at the controls. After making their way inside they find a bag with money in it, lots of money, $4.4 million in fact.

Morally correct Hank wants to hand the money in and collect any reward, if there is one. Lou and Jacob whom are both out of work see this as retirement and want to keep the money. "You work for the American Dream, you don't steal it." Exclaims Hank, although he is soon going back on that when he comes up with a plan. The plan is simple (hence the name of the film). He will keep the money till the Spring when they are sure that the plane will be found, if (when it is) there is no mention of the money, then they will distribute it three ways and leave town never to return.

The three are sworn to secrecy not to reveal the money or the plan to anyone, Although hypocritical Hanks is soon telling his Pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) and its not long before she is adding extras to the plan which Hank needs to carry out, The result is that this breeds further arguments and mistrust, which escalates and snowballs out of control, this ultimately leads to a showdown back at the very plane that is the cause of all their problems.

I do generally like Sam Raimi's work, most people are aware the "The Evil Dead" and there as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon basin that know of Spiderman, so I thought this was a good choice as a movie to watch. But (I was soon to discover) this is not like his normal fare, at least not in terms of the other Raimi movies that I have seen, these have been more on a horror or fantasy level (the aforementioned Evil Dead, Spiderman etc), although in saying that all the films that I have seen do tend to have one thing in common, and that is that they portray normal people that end up doing things that they would not normally do, and in that sense A Simple Plan is a classic Raimi film. I don't know if this is a theme through ALL of his movies.

The movie is very character based with pretty much the first hour of this one hour fifty six minute movie being dedicated to the building up of those characters. I must admit I was getting a little frustrated at this point (about the hour mark) and was considering turning the movie off, but I persevered and ultimately am glad that I did as the last half of the movie is most definitely better than the first half.

For the most part the acting is pretty good. I say this because there were some points in the movie where I thought "come on now, you would not do that". This being mainly from Bill Paxton whom I've never been a massive fan of (except in Aliens), he starts as the moral high point in the movie trying to counter the initial greed of his slightly simple brother Jacob and the foul drunkard Lou, however as the movie progresses it is HIS character along with his wife Sarah that seem more willing to do anything in an attempt to ensure that they keep the money, even to the point of breaking almost all of the conditions that he himself laid down at the beginning, we see him slide away from his good side and further along the path of corruption and greed.

Billy-Bob Thornton whom in my opinion is an underrated actor is brilliant as Jacob. Jacob comes across as a simpleton, both in his speech and his mannerisms, however after watching the film you realise that he picks up on a lot of things that no-one else seems to. You really get to feel for his character not so much out of pity but just because he never had the breaks that his brother (Hank) had, at one point when Jacob, Hank and Lou are together he announces "We don't have anything in common, me and him, except maybe our last name." and indicates that indeed himself and Lou have more in common with each other. I felt that BB Thornton was the one who made this movie worth watching, he is superb.

The story itself though is where there is the fundamental flaw, sure Hank lays down some conditions about how and when they will distribute the money, but then is the one who all too quickly disregards his own advice to do some pretty bad things, and it all seems quite a big leap for the audience to take. Obviously the story needed something to happen in order to turn the most moral character into the most immoral by the end of the film, but I felt that the first act of wickedness is too wicked for an audience to cope with on a realism level, The Hank we saw some 15/20 minutes earlier would have made an excuse and burnt the money as he originally had promised. So I guess it was (in my opinion) an error in the script, and I think they should have chosen to go more along the route of subtlety, after all they needed something to happen or there was no movie.

But that aside if you can get past the first hour of character building and see through the flaw of one of the main characters it is an enjoyable movie, although I think if BB-Thornton had not been cast then this would have been a mediocre picture at best.

Sound and Vision:
The Soundtrack in nothing memorable to be honest being predominantly dialogue I cannot recall any music that sticks to mind, as such it is mainly the centre speaker used for the dialogue although there are the occasional effects through the surrounds.

Picture wise we get an excellent transfer. The cold, deep winter backdrop of Minnesota is mesmerising so much so that the cold seems to seep into your living room and will have you reaching for the thermostat. Apparently Raimi took advice from the Coen Brothers who made Fargo on lighting techniques in snow and it has obviously worked. The scenery looks deadly and yet beautiful, top notch transfer.

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Extras:
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There were no extras bar a trailer on this rental disk.

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Overall:
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Not a film for people who likes lots of action, it has a relatively slow build-up showing normal people who get pulled into doing monstrous things, if you can get past the first hour you will be left with a fairly well made but average movie. I have chosen no as a recomendation and i mean no as a purchase, I do recommended for rental.

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Note:
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This review is all my own words and a (very) slightly re-written version of the review I have posted up on the website that I work on, also cross posted to Ciao under stevepeto. 

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