The snow itself is a reducing agent. Its purity distills hotheaded aggression into the spillage of precious fluid. Humans are complicated, director Sam Raimi seems to say, but their actions are as simple as red and white. A Simple Plan is a distant cousin of those Hitchcock thrillers in which everyman heroes turn out to be the films' true villains. The three of them confront each other over the duffel bag.
Hank tries to convince the others to turn the money into the police.
But Jacob and Lou want to keep it. No one's looking for it, they say. It's probably drug money presumed gone forever by its owners. No one will get hurt. Soon, Hank is pouring the cash on his kitchen table, to the delight of his wife.