starring : bill paxton , billy bob thorton , bridget fondai know what i would do with $4 . 4 million if i found it in a previously undiscovered airplane crash site , especially if i were with jacob and lou . ( huh ? ) well , in any event , that is the situation hank ( paxton ) finds himself in . he and his dim-witted brother jacob ( thorton ) and tubby friend lou ( brent briscoe ) come upon a large bag of cash inside a plane wreck . against his better judgement , hank decides to go along with the idea of keeping it rather than going to the authorities . the rest of the film is a question of who is going to die to keep this a secret , and is it worth it ? a simple wish lies along the lines of very bad things , clay pigeons and even fargo , and is kind of wrapped all into one little dark bundle . oh , and its much better than any of those . sam raimi took a departure from his normal freak-show horror-monkey films and made this stylish and intriguing picture . he really lets the audience sit back and watch the events unfold rather than force them down our throats as many directors prefer to do . i think raimi knew he had a winner on his hands and decided to direct the picture on a natural flowing course . one of the film's components can be linked to a recurring theme in terrence malick's the thin red line . in malick's three hour bore-a-thon , he makes an interesting attempt to link mother earth to his war story . it seemed nothing more than an occasional pretty cut to a field of flowing grass , a small bird , or a flowing body of water . sure , there were obvious metaphorical connections , but there was no subtlty to his efforts . raimi does a fine job of tying in a fox in a chicken coop and birds of prey to signify the future of the characters . i think most viewers may miss the comparison , but it is a very intriguing ingredient in the film . and then there's billy bob thorton , who is proof that the independent film industry is vital to the life blood of hollywood . if it can continute to produce people like thorton , hollywood will be ok . he gives a fantastic and devastatingly deep performance here . it is not as engrossing as his carl childers character in slingblade , but is is just as complex , if not more so . jacob is slow and simple , and yet we so often see him deep in thought . i wondered if he was thinking about things that he would never say ( or didn't know how to say ) or if he was just taking a long time to think about the thing he just said . here he really proves his worth as one of the best character actors in the industry . though the plot is somewhat unoriginal , it has a very appealing new twist in its characters . paxton gives one of the better performances of his career as the straight and serious leader of the group ( a far cry from chet in wierd science ) . perhaps bridget fonda is miscast as his advice-giving wife , but she certainly doesn't do anything ruin the picture . a simple plan can be included in the group of recent small hollywood films that is just dark and pretty un-redeeming . but at least this one has an important message , unlike so many of its counterparts . * * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars ©1999 nick amado <a href= " mailto : namado@concentric . net " >namado@concentric . net</a> check out my movie reviews at www . writerboy . com/nick ( or i'll come to your house and read all my reviews outloud in miss piggy's voice ) 
