A Simple Plan

When I heard Bill Paxton passed away, I thought back on all his iconic roles over the course of his career. The smart mouthed Hudson in Aliens, a sadistic vampire in the underrated Near Dark, the smarmy used car salesman posing as a spy in True Lies, the courageous stormchaser in Twister, the obnoxious older brother Chet in Weird Science, a man seeking a lost diamond among the wreckage of the sunken ship in Titanic, the troubled father convinced he is on a mission from god to kill demons in Frailty (a film he also directed and I reviewed here). There are countless others but the one I kept coming back to was his performance in the dark thriller A Simple Plan. 

Hank Mitchell (played by Bill Paxton) lives a simple life in rural Minnesota, working at the feed mill and living with his wife, Sarah (played by Bridget Fonda), with a baby on the way. One day, while out with his brother Jacob (played by Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob's friend Lou (played by Brent Briscoe) they discover a crashed plane in the woods. Checking it out, they discover that inside is not only the body of the pilot but a duffel bag full of money totaling roughly four and a half million dollars. The three men decide to keep it with the provision that Hank hangs on to the money until Spring when the plane is found and if nobody asks about the money, they'll split it up evenly and then all of them leave town. What starts as a simple plan begins to slowly unravel as mistrust and suspicion begins to grow between the men. As the three men dig themselves in deeper and deeper and the bodies begin to fall, Hank finds himself scrambling to find a way out of this increasingly dire situation.

The film was directed by Sam Raimi at his most un-Sam Raimi. The wild camera tricks and exaggerated violence that became his trademark is nowhere to be found here, aside perhaps for one moment (you'll know it when you see it). He treats the material of the film with the utmost seriousness that it deserves and the film works all the better for it, making every twist of the plot that much more gut-wrenching as Hank keeps digging himself in deeper and deeper, doing things he never thought he would do. Scott B. Smith wrote the screenplay, based on his novel and weaves a tight little tale of three men in way over their heads and along with Raimi does a wonderful job of slowly building the growing tension over the course of the film. They are also helped by a wonderful score by Danny Elfman that really sets the mood for the film. 

When the film was first released back in 1998, it was Billy Bob Thornton who got most of the attention as Hank's mentally challenged brother Jacob, even earning an Academy Award nomination in the process. While Thornton's performance was good, I always felt like Bill Paxton's performance was overlooked. He gives such a great performance in this and it was his turn that made the film stick with me for the past nineteen years. Bill Paxton lent a certain guy next door charm to the role that I think a bigger star would have hurt the film. I felt like I knew this guy and that is part of what made the film so effective and made me empathize with his character as the world around him starts to spin out of control. Paxton was able to capture so much of his character's anguish and in turn had me squirming in my seat as Hank just dug himself in deeper and deeper, with Bridget Fonda as the Lady Macbeth of the Upper Midwest urging him on. If I had to rank the best Bill Paxton performances over his career, I'd rank this one at number one. It has stuck with me over all the others for all these years. 

A Simple Plan wasn't a huge hit when it was released in theatres back in 1998, but gained a certain reputation once it hit DVD, which is how I first saw it. It was a film that was often compared to Fargo, but aside from both being snow swept crime stories, this one had a much more serious tone while Fargo had a stronger comedic edge to it. So, the comparison feels a little inaccurate to me. Still, A Simple Plan is a superior thriller filled with great performances that just never quite got it's due when it was released. It is however well worth checking it out if you've never seen it. If you subscribe to Hulu, it'll be on there starting 3/1/2017.