Sam Raimi is, as a director, known for a certain type of movies, often featuring oddballs and weirdos. It could be a superhero like Spider-Man, the tragic Darkman, or the incredibly unlucky idiot Ash Williams, but these are the sorts of characters Raimi is known for. Even The Gift was about a psychic. Setting movies in the here and now didn’t seem to be in his wheelhouse. And yet, there’s A Simple Plan, a movie about ordinary people who react poorly when they find a lot of money that they need to keep secret if they want to keep it.
I heard a lot of good things about this movie. Why did it take me this long to see it?
Three men, brothers Hank (Bill Paxton) and Jacob Mitchell (Billy Bob Thorton) and their friend Lou (Brent Briscoe), are out in the woods near their rural Minnesota hometown when they find a downed airplane. The pilot is dead, but inside is a duffel bag containing over four million dollars in cash. Lou and Jacob are both unemployed, and Hank, despite being one of the few college grads in town, isn’t exactly doing very well while his very pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) is the town librarian. Sure, they could just return the money to the authorities, but instead, they opt to hold onto it for themselves. They just need to figure out how to hold onto it without raising suspicions without getting caught.
However, this is easier said than done. Jacob has learning disabilities, and he overreacts early on. Sarah, let in on the fact they found a lot of money, keeps coming up with ideas to make things less suspicious and only that somehow only make it more so. Lou, who didn’t tell his wife, is broke and needs his share immediately. Jacob isn’t keen on leaving town when they do distribute the cash. And whose money is it anyway? A lot of ill-gotten gains drive rifts between the three men (plus Sarah), and it’s the sort of thing that won’t end without some bloodshed. The only question then is how much.
Oh, this was just as good as I’d heard. Paxton makes for a good everyman, Fonda really sinks her teeth into a more twisted role, and the script makes a lot of sense. These are people who are a lot more desperate than evil but end up doing evil things to cover for their “good” fortune. These are people doing things they shouldn’t, they know it, but often do it anyway. About the only complaint I have is Paxton’s voiceover at the beginning and end of the movie sounds a bit flat.
Best of all may be Thorton. While Jacob’s hands aren’t exactly clean, he is the closest the movie comes to an innocent character. He’s the one who just wants something simple, a wife and kids of his own and a return to the Mitchell family farm. He just doesn’t seem to understand life the same way the others do, and his conscience is clearly bothering him the most, even as he’s the first to realize that the money really won’t make anyone happy or solve their problems. I do love a good noir, but an innocent character, a truly innocent character, is such a rarity in those, and it was nice to not only see one, but to see one pulled off as well as this movie did.
Grade: A-
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