Ein einfacher Plan

"A Simple Plan" immediately reminds you of "Fargo". A dull, snowy winter. Men beginning to cheat on a small scale, which then begins to escalate until it becomes out of control. And no one will *like* the ending, but it is the only ending that could make this fine film complete.

It is filmed in Minnesota in the wintertime. Two brothers come upon a small plane that has crashed. Since there have been no news reports, they rightly assume no one knows about it. There's a dead pilot inside, plus money, lots of money. Everyone knows what the 'right' thing to do is. But what will they do? What would most people do? How do attitudes change as participants begin to think of the possibilities?

The acting, especially Billy Bob Thornton, is excellent. You will watch the film without blinking. You will ask yourself, "what would I do in a similar situation?" Unless you only like light entertainment, you really need to see this film.

Edit April 2020: I own the DVD but only watch it every few years, as I did currently. My opinion of the movie has not changed since my first viewing, good movie but sometimes hard to watch.

Two brothers & a friend from a small town in Minnesota (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Brent Briscoe) happen upon a crashed plane in the woods, which contains over $4 million in cash. They assume it's drug money and hatch a simple plan to sit on the money until spring when the plane is discovered; if no one legitimately claims it they'll divvy it up. But things don't go according to plan due to idiocy, mistrust and greed. Bridget Fonda is on hand as the main protagonist's wife.

Directed by Sam Raimi before his ultra-success with the Spider-Man trilogy, "A Simple Plan" (1998) was written by Scott B. Smith based on his page-turning book of the same name (there are enough changes to make both worthwhile). The wintery Minnesota setting is fitting for the bleak psychological drama. Speaking of which, the best thing about this movie is its exploration of human nature and how "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil," as the Bible puts it.

The movie effectively shows how basically good and normal people can be corrupted by the temptation of easy wealth; so corrupted that he or she is suddenly willing to murder, lie and connive. The story works so well because of the three well-defined characters. We've all met these types in real life: The wholesome, educated man who's not quite living up to his potential and yet is generally satisfied; the loser, screw-up who's never been with a girl even though he's in his 40s; and the annoying redneck hick.

The film runs 2 hours and was shot in Minnesota (Delano, St. Paul & Golden Valley) and Wisconsin (Ashland).

GRADE: A-

Hank, Jacob and Lou are out for a ride in Hank's truck when they hit a tree. Walking out into the snow they find a crashed plane in the woods with the pilot dead and a bag of money ($4 million). They decide to keep the money and wait to see if anything is mentioned about it. However as time passes mistrust and betrayal becomes murder as the original simple plan becomes more and more complex.

Sam Rami is a great director, albeit more well known for less subtle films than this such as the Evil Dead movies. However here he shows that he can deal with things that lack in OTT visuals etc but be a good subtle director. The basic story starts simply and gets more convoluted very easily. The plot twists are never absurd even if they are extreme, the way the story builds gradually is one of it's strengths. The best bit is the way that everything is simple (as in the title) – the snow makes all the scenes a simple white, the relationships are simple and the misunderstandings are straight forward. This simple nature makes the twists even more powerful as they come in the middle of a `normal' situation..

The cast are all very good. Paxton is especially good in the lead as the man who doesn't want to take the money originally who then is forced to take the lead in the actions that need doing to cover the crime. Thornton is the best – he not even that recognizable and he deals with his role really well. He may be a simpleton but he doesn't make it just a cartoon role. Briscoe is less well defined and Fonda isn't really key to the plot. Gary Cole has a small part towards the end and Paxton Snr has a small role.

Overall this is very enjoyable. As a noir it is very different to have it in a Fargo landscape. Rami's toned down direction is very good and he does very well with the exciting twists and with the emotional sections too. A different, sometimes slow, but very enjoyable thriller of greed and mistrust.

The film deals about Hank(Bill Paxton), his loser brother Jacob(Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob's best friend, a boozy bud named Lou(Brent Briscoe) find the wreckage of an airplane in the heavy snowy Minnesota forests. The pilot encounters dead and appear a bag filled with various million dollars in stolen money, that they think is dope cash.The trio decide to keep silence about it and Hank hold the money hidden in his house.But someone else is looking for the money, a Fed agent(Gary Cole) and the sheriff(Chelcie Ross)are investigating. Besides, the Hank's mean and pregnant spouse(Bridget Fonda)brings out the greed and soon bad things start to happen to everybody those involved.

This neo-noir story contains drama, thriller, tragedy and is quite entertaining. From the beginning to the ending, suspense and mystery is continuous. The film is plenty of twists, especially on its final part and the script is adapted from the 1993 novel by Scott Smith. The picture is well set and shot in rural small town of Delano, Minnesota. Acting by main actors is frankly excellent with special mention to Billy Bob Thornton and Bridget Fonda as the ambitious librarian wife. Suspenseful and atmospheric music score by Danny Elffman, he's Raimi's usual musician and appropriate cinematography by Kivilo . Firstly was Ben Stiller hired to direct the movie with Nicholas Gage as starring but his wage overall budget and they left , then was set Sam Raimi who made a magnificent direction. He learned techniques on filming in the snowy woods from the Cohen brothers who formerly had directed ¨Fargo¨, a story with certain similarity. Rating : Very good. Better than average. It's a ¨must see¨ for Billy Bob Thornton fans and suspense genre enthusiastic.

Simply one of the best films of the year, perhaps the decade! A Simple Plan is about three men who find a huge amount of money in a plane wreck. They decide to keep the dough. It's like winning the lottery. It's the American Dream except that " you're supposed to work for the American Dream. But that just makes this better" replies one of the characters.

A Simple Plan stars Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton as two Minnesotan brothers Hank and Jacob who find the money with Jake's friend Lou played by Brent Briscoe.

The film is directed by Sam Raimi, the creator of the Evil Dead movies and there are some suitably macabre and funny Evil Dead touches to this masterpiece, although Raimi doesn't botch A Simple Plan up as he did with Sharon Stone's The Quick And The Dead a couple of years ago. This is a restrained, delicate Raimi.

A Simple Plan instead is on one plane a wry incisive comment on the human condition, but it's also a cautionary tale about the evil good men can do.

The characters are fascinating. Paxton as Hank is the brainy one of the three. He's been to college and has a wife (Bridget Fonda) who's just about to have a baby. Jacob is slow and sad with a big touch of goodness about him. His hair is lank, his teeth are dirty, he's in his thirties and has never had a girlfriend.

Jake gets drunk most days and nights with his boozing friend Lou, and both are unemployed. The prospect of a ton of money is as unsettling and exciting to this lot as it would be to any honest person who becomes suddenly very rich unexpectedly and illegally. This find is guaranteed to turn their lives up side down.

But things take increasingly violent turns until A Simple Plan has the air of a Shakespearian tragedy solidly biased by Hitchcockian twists. Add to this Raimi's weird sense of humour and a Coen Brothers, Fargo like frozen air and you have a superb film that will have you laughing uncomfortably as you ponder the extent to which men and women will go nuts and nasty when greed overcomes them.

Quite rightly both Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton are being touted for big acting awards as a result of their work in this marvellous film.