I wholeheartedly disagree with the following review, but hey, ain't that what I've been a saying about this whole 'review' thing anyway? Agent Kushing here has every right in the world to this, and I can disagree in complete peace. His big complaint was that he felt the film was being built up too much. And I can see that. The film is actually quite a 'small' film. For me it's not a big entertaining film, instead it's merely a great small film. Like THE BIG NIGHT on downers. I feel it is a better film than FARGO, but some will disagree prefering the winking and smiling that went on in FARGO. But enough of me, here's the review. Warning there are spoilers...
I saw a screening a couple of nights ago of A Simple Plan at the Paramount studios in Hollywood. This movie has been slowly building so much hype, that I think I went in there expecting to see a film on the level of Good Will Hunting or Fargo. Although it was good and I enjoyed it, it was by no means great.
Everyone knows the plot by now, but just in case. Three guys find a plane that has crashed in the woods and inside the plane is a bag full of money (4.5 million). They now have to decide what to do with the money.
Spoiler here
They obviously decide to keep it. But this is where in my opinion the movie goes foul. I compare this to Jerry Maguire. I went into Jerry Maguire wanting to see a movie about a sports agent, not a love story. My girlfriend went in wanting to see a love story, and neither of us were completely satisfied. Anyway, I think A Simple Plan suffers from the JM syndrome.
The movie goes into the moral dilema of, "is it right? should we give it to the cops?" issue, but not enough. This is a serious issue and many moral dilemas are hinted at, but never fully established through the characters voices. They never say what we would think if we were in their situation. Although many of these questions are answered through the events the concern the plot, such as, "can money buy happiness?" and "is money the root of all evil." The characters never delve into these serious issues. I think that if they would have, the movie would have been infinitely better and it would have acted a sense of forshadowing.
The other issue is the suspense. They slowly build little hints that someone is going to come looking for the money and sure enough some one does. But they don't develope enough, "the plan". What to do if someone comes looking. This could have been a really cool part of the movie. Only to throw away the plan when the guy who comes looking actually comes looking. All they say is, we'll burn it. I'm sorry but that is lame. They should have created an intricate detailed plan only to abandon it, not by choice, but by instinct. (I don't want to ruin the movie too much, but if you see it, you'll know what I'm talking about.)
Lastly, the acting. Yes Billy Bob Thorton is awesome. He looks just like Mike Myers from Wayne's World for the first ten minutes. He is very good and his character goes through very dynamic, but believable changes, but HE WILL NOT WIN THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR!!!!!!! Don't believe the hype. This movie isn't strong enough to carry him to that level where he would recieve recognition on that level. As for Bill Paxson. I didn't know that he could act so well. He was great. A lot of it, was just playing off of Billy Bob, but he did it well. Good job. As for the rest of the cast. They were good, but Bill Paxson's wife, didn't do it for me. She would be the all-American wife one second and then create these intricate plans the next. I don't know, but I didn't buy her. This movie will certainly not get nominated for best picture either. As I said earlier, it is good. Kind of like Rounder's. Good solid story with great betrayels. But neither will get any nominations. I actually liked Rounder's more, because it didn't have any Oscar hype going into it before it came out.
