|
Starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget Fonda, Brent Briscoe.
Directed by Sam Raimi.
Hank Mitchell (Paxton) lives in small town Minnesota, working as an accountant at the local feed mill. His wife (Fonda), pregnant and ready to burst with their first child, works at the library. Hank's brother Jacob (Thornton), sweet and a little slow, is habitually unemployed and living in a little apartment in town. Jacob's best friend is Lou (Briscoe), the local unemployed drunk whose wife has just about had it with him. On New Year's Eve, when placing flowers at their father's grave, Jacob crashes his old pickup into a tree trying to avoid a fox escaping with a hen in his teeth. After following the fox into the woods to exact some revenge, the boys stumble across a small airplane covered in snow. Inside, they find a duffle bag filled with $100 bills, totalling $4.4 million. Hank immediately suggests that they return the money - people will be out looking for this kind of cash and they would likely get caught. But Lou suggests they not be too hasty. He figures it's probably drug money, and will never be missed. Jacob agrees, and figures the pilot's dead and no longer needs the money and making a ton of money is the American dream. Hank suggests you're not meant to steal the American dream. Eventually, Hank gives in, but only agrees to keep it if he stores the whole amount at his place, and the money isn't divided until the plane is found in the spring and they find out if the authorities know if the money is missing. If any suspicion falls on them, Hank will burn the money. Sarah suggests at first that the money should be returned, but after seeing all that money overflowing on her kitchen table, she changes her mind when she thinks about the baby on the way and the subsistance lives she and Hank are living. But almost immediately, plans start to go awry. The three men begin to fight over when to divide up the money, and lie to each other, unable to know who they can trust. Bodies start falling. And they they begin to question themselves about what they have become. A Simple Plan is a straightforward story about an upstanding, respectable man and wife, and a couple of down-on-their-luck men barely getting by, unable to resist a huge windfall. Like classic film noir, the characters are small-time people with flaws, and you know things are bound to go bad. You know it almost immediately, from seeing Hank's worried expression, and from crows looking on from the snow-covered trees as if to say they are ready to pick the bones of these hapless people. Occasionally, I believed things might actually turn out, but things quickly turn sour again. These characters are basically decent people who desire a life without constant money worries. Jacob asks Hank if he thinks they are evil, as they all commit acts of betrayal and several big crimes trying to keep their secret, and Hank can't answer. The characters were basically happy before finding the money, but their expectations are raised - they discover that they no longer just want to scrape by. But they experience very little peace or happiness after their discovery, constantly worrying about being caught and about what the other conspirators will do. We learn of simmering resentments between the brothersand a few family secrets, and unfulfilled aspirations in each of the characters. The ending is bitter, and totally fitting for the story. Thorton is almost unrecognizable, and delivers a moving and realistic portrayal of a deceptively simple loner. Paxton is also strong, making Hank's defensive spiral into evil understandable. Fonda is inconsistent, not being able to smoothly make the transition from honest and moral to manipulative and greedy totally believable. The script is excellent, avoiding jarring plot turns for consistency and character revelation. And the snow acts as a character, emitting both bleakness and a deceptive warmth during the snowstorms. Like Fargo and The Sweet Hereafter, you feel as if the characters are pawns in their bleak surroundings. A Simple Plan is an engrossing film well worth seeing.  
|