Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay One of the most popular cult filmmakers of the late-20th century is Sam Raimi, who has transcended genres and budgets to leave his unique mark on modern cinema. Some fans uphold the Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man trilogy, while others harken back to his feature directorial debut The Evil Dead and its zany sequels which represent his horror roots. Needless to say, Raimi is still a popular director (and prolific director) despite his relatively small output this past decade. But, in my humble opinion, the most underrated and best Sam Raimi film is his 1998 neo-noir crime thriller A Simple Plan.
Why is this movie worth your time? Keep reading to find out. 😊 What’s It About [NOTE: This section contains minor spoilers for “A Simple Plan.” If you’d rather see the film for yourself, skip to the next section.] The film follows the lives of married couple Hank and Sarah Mitchell (Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda) who live in rural Minnesota where Hank’s older brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) also resides. While Hank and Jacob hunt down a fox with their friend Lou Chambers (Brent Briscoe) into the snowy woods, the three men come across a crashed airplane. Inside, the pilot is dead and there is a bag containing over four-million dollars just sitting there. Despite Hank’s reservations otherwise, Jacob and Lou persuade him to keep the money safe until winter’s end. They figure that if nobody inquires as to the money by springtime, then they can split the loot three ways and leave town. After a tense confrontation with the local sheriff, the men agree to keep the money a secret between themselves (despite Hank revealing the money to Sarah once he returns home with it). Despite their best efforts to hold out until spring and distort any potential trail pointing to them, Hank, Jacob and Lou make several mistakes along the way that result in others being hurt and killed in the process of preserving as much of their score as possible. As the drama unravels, Hank and Jacob’s relationship is pressured and strained and their lives will never be the same again. Why It’s Worth Watching Admittedly, it’s hard to discuss the best things about A Simple Plan without spoiling the entire plot. But I’ll do my best. 😊 For starters, if you’re just looking for a movie with some excellent lead performances than look no further. Our two stars here, Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, play so well off each other as brothers with a particularly strained dynamic that’s more fleshed out as the story goes along. But the journey they go on together would not work as well if they couldn’t stand on their own terms as performers and characters. Whether it’s Paxton and Fonda as husband and wife or Thornton and Briscoe as best friends, the main cast here plays their parts to damn-near perfection by propping each other up rather than distracting or taking away from each other’s respective performances. In terms of the story overall, I was surprised at just how grounded this version of the rural Midwest that Raimi crafted was. If you’re at all familiar with his other work, from The Evil Dead to Darkman, I guarantee that you will watch A Simple Plan and be unable to spot any of Raimi’s defining characteristics as a director. His signature zany camerawork and reliance on excessively melodramatic characters is nowhere to be seen here. Instead, Raimi lets the inherent dramatic tension created between the characters and their intensely personal predicament drive the story. In other words, this feels like Raimi prioritizing substance over style in a way that so many of his other movies do the opposite. Sometimes, a director turning away from the style most associated with them can result in a bland, uninspired story (Spike Lee’s Inside Man, for example). But other times, it can blossom something truly entertaining and engaging like A Simple Plan. All this is to say that if you’ve seen Raimi’s other work and been discouraged by it, I think that this movie is worth a shot because of how much it doesn’t feel like any other Raimi movie. At the end of the day, this movie is a crime drama that delivers on its branding. By letting the inciting event (the main characters finding a stash of money in a downed airplane) drive the narrative, Raimi plays out a character-driven thriller that explores the deepest, darkest depths of the human psyche regarding the lengths that human beings will go to satiate their own greed and selfish desires. Simply put, not only is A Simple Plan my favorite Sam Raimi flick but (in my humble opinion) it’s one of the most underappreciated crime dramas of the last few decades. Have I convinced you to check out Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan? What’s a movie that you feel is underappreciated? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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