# Simple Plan, A (1998)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

    A SIMPLE PLAN
    (Paramount)
    Starring:  Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget Fonda, Brent Briscoe,
    Gary Cole.
    Screenplay:  Scott B. Smith, based on his novel.
    Producers:  James Jacks and Adam Schroeder.
    Director:  Sam Raimi.
    MPAA Rating:  R (profanity, violence).
    Running Time:  120 minutes.
    Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

A couple of years ago, I began reading Scott Smith's novel A SIMPLE PLAN and never made it to the halfway point. There was nothing particularly wrong with the plot -- a moody cautionary tale about the resulting spiral of guilt and violence when three men find $4.4 million in a wrecked plane -- nor did Smith's prose style offend in any way. The simple problem with A SIMPLE PLAN was the narrative structure, in which Smith told the story as a first person account by one of the men. It seemed to me a terrible mistake, one made identification with one specific character too explicit. Intriguing though the premise may have been, I couldn't get past hearing Hank Mitchell's voice while watching his story unfold.

Sam Raimi's screen version of A SIMPLE PLAN shows how easy it can be to improve on a novel when point-of-view is its only real flaw. Raimi casts Bill Paxton as Hank, a hard-working family man in a snowy Minnesota farm town. One New Year's Eve, Hank -- along with his brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob's drinking buddy Lou (Brent Briscoe) -- takes an unexpected detour into snowy woods, where they discover the downed plane, a dead pilot and a bag full of $100 bills. Suspecting the money must be ill-gotten, Lou and Jacob are intent on keeping it, and manage to talk Hank into a compromise whereby they'll sit on the money until the plane is found in the spring. If no one comes looking for the money, no harm done, and three millionaires made.

Only there is harm done. Greed begins twisting the three men, already divided into shifting factions -- educated Hank vs. unemployed Jacob and Lou, the two Mitchell brothers vs. the outsider Lou -- into ever-more-extreme methods of covering their tracks. It also begins twisting Hank's wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda), who eventually becomes the most determined to keep the cash at any cost. A SIMPLE PLAN offers an object lesson in any number of cliched moral bon mots: crime doesn't pay, there certainly isn't any honor among thieves, and love of money is indeed the root of all evil. It's a tale of what we're made of at our core, and how little it takes to strip away the civilization in a man like Hank and turn him into a savage.

That probably doesn't sound like the kind of material one usually associates with Raimi (THE EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN), a director whose camera often seems to need a dose of Ritalin. He certainly tones down his hyperkinetic visuals, but he loses none of his energy, which is why A SIMPLE PLAN never feels like a simplistic morality play. He merely harnesses that energy into scenes of superbly crafted tension, where the moments before critical decisions linger with almost unbearable anticipation. Raimi allows you to feel the weight of every bad choice, every life-threatening turning point. He does it not by letting Hank explain to you what he's doing, but by giving you a moment to consider what you would do in his place. It's a thriller as full of genuine dread as anything a major studio has produced in recent years.

It's also a thriller full of genuine pathos, thanks to a masterful supporting performance by Billy Bob Thornton. As the simple-minded Jacob, a life-long loser who believes money might finally make him somebody, he is the film's true moral compass. As confused as he is physically grotesque, he provides the sense of emotional consequence most plot-driven thrillers lack. The one drawback to Thornton's intense work is that he makes his castmates look weak by comparison; Bridget Fonda's calculating Sarah rings particularly false at times. A SIMPLE PLAN overreaches its grasp a bit during the final act when a sinister figure arrives to threaten the plan, but by then Raimi and Smith have gotten you so wrapped up in what their characters will do next that you're willing to follow wherever they lead. Smith's first-person narrative in written form made this a tale of one man's descent. On the screen, A SIMPLE PLAN lets you identify with every character and experience the chilly, chilling dark night of several souls.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 greed expectations:  8.

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