it 's been a good
long while since we had a good old fashioned thriller , where mostly everything goes right for the audience and wrong for the characters ,
but it 's been even longer since i saw a thriller that actually * shock * cared for the characters , not merely judged them but actually allowed their human foibles , flaws , and strengths to emerge so radiantly .
i 'd saw that it 's been at least a couple decades , even as far back to the great hitchcock thrillers , though i 'm hardly comparing " a simple plan " to , say , " rear window " or " strangers on a train .
"
yet it 's almost as good .
it 's simple , yet strangely complex , and astonishingly rewarding , because instead of moving from plot point to plot point , and merely laying out they - might - be - caught overtones , it instead concerns itself with the moral corruption and depths of greed that its protagonists can go to , all without ever judging them as either evil or even immoral .
elegantly directed by sam raimi ( yes , the same ) , " a simple plan " concerns itself with the discovery of a crashed plane and within a bag full of millions of dollars by an upright , moderately financially stable working man ( bill paxton ) , his dim - witted brother ( billy bob thornton ) , and his drinking buddy ( brent briscoe ) . without anyone around , and the possibility that no one would come looking for it , the three debate and debate but finally reach the decision that yes , they will keep it , but until any authorities or possible owners of the cash come looking , and so they generally do n't flaunt anything they do n't want to flaunt , they 'll keep it stored away in the custody of paxton .
the possibilites of this circumstance are much diverse : a ) they could endlessly play cat and mouse with the authorities ; b ) they could try to fight off the rightful owners , who are either villainous or just ; or c ) they could fight amongst themselves .
"
a simple plan , " though borrows a little from each of these .
a little tiff with the cops here , a subplot involving an alleged fbi agent ( a chilling gary cole ) there ) , and a bit of inside feuding over here .
but , as austin powers would say , that 's not necessarily its bag ( baby ) .
what i most admired about this film , and what makes this a far superior and unique thriller is that it 's successfully able to have its cake and eat it too .
it effectively involves some of the traditional thriller cliches , like the ones mentioned above , but at the same time , it involves itself more deeply with the way the characters become morally corrupt and what price they have to pay to have what they think is happiness in a black duffle bag .
so while steps are taken to neatly cover things up , and these subsequent steps go miserably awry , the film choses to never loose the sight that in covering things up to the extent that these characters have to , they are slowly losing their souls and their humanity .
in one early scene , paxton and thornton have to make a trip back to the plane to return some of the money so it does n't look like it was all stolen ( not a bad idea ) , when thornton screws up ( as he does continuously throughout the movie ) , and paxton has to do some major covering - up ( read : homicide ) .
instead of a quick murder and immeadiate hands - washing , raimi shows a lengthy , painful shot from a low - angle onto paxton 's face as he tries to sift through his emotions and reach a conclusion .
there 's a similar shot afterwards of paxton watching the murder he 's committing and taking in all the horror which is also wonderfully effective , but the previous shot is even better : more morally complex and more gut - wrenching .
in short , probably the best piece of direction raimi 's ever done , demonstrating once again that sometimes the simplest way to do something yields the best results ( for further proof , watch " persona " 's " sex scene " and witness what may be the best scene ingmar bergman 's ever done ) .
but the film hardly stops here ; it follows completely through and rarely loses sight of its characters humanity and the depletion thereof .
yet it also moves from step to step in such a graceful method that we never feel like the film is merely stamping out the plot points of the story .
when the time comes for paxton to start becoming selfish and thus diabolical ( with aid from his pregnant wife , played by bridget fonda , a pal to raimi ) , he does , and soon the horror of the situation is escalating to tragic heights .
there 's at least two grand shootouts , and at least one of them may be one of the greatest shootouts in cinema history , and when they arrive , they do n't come with masochistic delight but with cringe - inducing horror .
during the one , i was actually sinking into my chair , with the mantra " they ca n't do this ,
can they ?
" streeming through my head .
in fact , this film , which is getting many comparisons to the coen 's [ superior , but forget about it ] " fargo , " has many similar moments of manic insanity , attributed to the major amount of subtlety and restraint with which the directors direct what , in other hands , would be over - the - top distractedness ( imagine , i suppose , robert rodriguez directing this . . .
then again , after seeing the " evil dead " films , i 'd hardly assume raimi would be able to pull something like this off , although there are moments of the film which are easily dubbed " raimi " moments , a rifle - shot notwithstanding ) .
instead , raimi directs with maturity and a gentle touch , easily letting the story and characters co - exist , while still letting some of the more traditional raimi elements come out , like some offbeat comic touches .
most particularly , billy bob thornton 's character , jacob , is a brilliant creation .
his dim - wittedness is often hilarious ( for most of the film , every line he uttered was greeted with howling laughter ) , but there 's authenticity to the performance that strangely enough makes sure that we 're not totally laughing at him .
the chuckles he gets are not necessarily ones of full - condescension because thornton is so damn real .
jacob 's a multi - dimensional character , and while being stupid , we see that as not so much a flaw , but a strength to his character : his simplicity is endearing and many of the acts he commits are out of a strong inner strength and belief system , primarily towards the middle where his bud and co - conspirator begins to make some heavy waves concerning the money .
the final third of the film spends much time with him , and many of the touches upon his character , not only by thornton but also by screenwriter scott b
.
smith ( adapting his own book , by the way
) are just great .
i particularly admired a back story about an old high school girlfriend , told by thornton with such sincerity and acception that the cruel story is reversed to near - sweetness and further strength of his saddened character .
thornton is absolutely brilliant in this performance , by far the best performance he 's ever given and further proof that he 's the best character actor in contemporary cinema ( if you do n't believe me , go back and watch his wonderful performance in " primary colors , " a performance that would have been nominated for an oscar if this had n't been in the same year ) because he 's easily able to slip into a character , and make him completely and utterly believable .
he brings so much weight to the film that , as it is with most character actors , it 's difficult picturing anyone else in the role .
the rest of the cast is great too , from paxton 's declining working man to chelcie ross ' amiable town sheriff .
even fonda shows off her talents nicely .
and if i had any complaints about the film , it 's that the plot is almost too simplistic , and that at times , it seems too much like an exercise , like a cruel test on humanity that still pays attention to the humanity involved .
and the occasional narration is , as it usually is , annoying ( narration should be used with extreme caution , especially when you 're trying to set things up and/or express emotions - did n't raimi watch the first murder scene ? ) .
and , the thing that can most usually go wrong with a movie , the ending is basically amiss .
i wo n't reveal it , but it 's way too cruel and too much of an outsider set - up , as if the appearance of a plane was n't already too much of that anyway . for a film that deals so much and so intimately with the humanity of the characters involved , this is the wrong ending .
imagine a character - controlled ending ; otherwise , it 's like if in " crime and punishment " if the police had caught him instead of him breaking down and confessing . .
.
not that i 'm at all comparing " a simple plan " to dostoevsky .
the ending does work , despite my protestations , but to me , there was something incessantly nagging and unsatisfying about it ; but if you had no qualms and were happy as a clam with it , then just ignore me and go about your day .
but despite my mere claims , make no mistake that i was completely and utterly edge of my seat throughout , and even sometimes curdling up by the situations that occured , not because of any kind of gore factor ( which is , thankfully for this , very minimal ) , but because the film places its characters in situations and gives them such painful things to overcome that i 've frankly not seen much like it in quite awhile .
at least not since the previous worthy hitchcockian masterpiece .
Output: P