1998 in Review: "A Simple Plan"

A forgotten masterpiece

As the end of our little 1998 project draws near, I notice one genre that has been mostly absent: the crime film. There was a great resurgence in crime films in the ‘90s, largely brought on by Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers, whose pulpy masterworks earned their spots in the canon and inspired a slew of half-baked imitations. But Tarantino didn’t make a film in 1998, and The Big Lebowski, the Coens’ contribution to our project, feels more like a stoner comedy than a crime movie. The only true crime film we’ve covered has been Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, but even that is remembered more for its movie star romance than its criminal element.

We do have A Simple Plan from director Sam Raimi. He’s no one’s idea of a crime director. Raimi is known more for his horror films (Evil Dead 2, Drag Me To Hell) and his stellar superhero work (the original Spider-Man trilogy). The less said about his baseball movie (For Love of the Game), the better. But he also is a good friend and collaborator of the Coens; in fact, he worked on their debut film Blood Simple and their 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. The filmmakers share a cartoonish sensibility that never sacrifices visual storytelling. It’s easy to see how his association with them might have helped get A Simple Plan made. Much like 1996’s Fargo, the Coens’ breakout hit, A Simple Plan is a crime thriller set in rural Minnesota in the dead of winter. There are blankets of white snow, all ready to be stained with blood.

A Simple Plan is a dramatization of an age-old moral quandary: If you found a suitcase full of money on the street, would you take it? When Hank (Bill Paxton), his brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), and their friend Lou (Brent Briscoe) find a bag containing $4 million in a crashed plane in the woods, a heated debate and some serious hand-wringing quickly gives way to a consensus: They will keep the money until spring (when the snow that covered the little plane has melted and authorities will surely find it), and then, if no one seems to be missing the money, distribute it evenly before splitting town. “This is the American Dream,” grins Jacob. “You work for the American Dream—you don’t steal it,” worries Hank.

Would you be shocked to know it doesn’t go according to plan? Although the remaining plot unfolds largely as expected, the film is crafted with such restraint and intelligence that its tension feels fully earned. Raimi ditches all of his expressionistic tricks and, except for an early shot of a crow pecking at a dead guy’s eyes, avoids the horrific. Instead, he puts the camera in the right place, cuts when you’re supposed to cut, and otherwise lets his talented actors dictate the emotional tenor. There’s a homespun simplicity to A Simple Plan that matches the setting, which makes it all the more impactful when the bullets start flying and the blood starts splattering the Minnesota snow.

It helps to have such serious actors to bring the human element out of the plot’s nifty turns. Paxton and Thornton are immaculately cast. They’re both Texans in real life, and while the film takes place up north, there’s an unspoken bond that makes them convincing as brothers. You sense they come from the same place. As Hank, Paxton is a convincing everyman who goes along with the plan against his better judgment–with a steady job and a pregnant wife (Bridget Fonda), he’s the only one with anything to lose—and then labors to hold the plan together as it starts spinning off the rails.

Thornton was likely cast as Jacob on the strength of his work in Sling Blade, where he played another simple-minded fellow. It was a striking performance that earned him an Oscar nomination (and an Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay), but his work here is much more nuanced. Dumb guys in movies are dumb all the time, but that’s not how they are in real life. His Jacob does stupid things that put the crew in real danger, but he also shows surprising intelligence, including in one key moment when he’s one step ahead of Hank, making you wonder who’s the dumb brother and who’s the smart one. It’s a brilliant sequence that throws the viewer off balance, making you question you own instincts and throwing open the door of possibilities to come.

The rest of the cast strike all the right notes. As Lou, Brent Briscoe proves equal to Paxton and Thornton. The scene in which he asks Hank to break their pact and release his share of the money strikes the perfect tone; it’s impossible to tell if he genuinely needs the money or if he just really wants it, and you can sense toxic greed creeping into their delicate plan. Veteran character actors Gary Cole and Checlie Ross stop by in small roles as an FBI agent and the local sheriff, while Bridget Fonda is a standout as Hank’s wife, whose initial reluctance to even accept the money quickly turns. Within 24 hours, she is directing Hank on how to cover his track and pitting him against his co-conspirators. Not many directors figured out quite what to do with Fonda in her too-brief career. She has a slippery quality. Her innocence always seems a put-on, while she could never quite pull off anything more sinister. Casting her as a pregnant small-town librarian with a Lady Macbeth complex is absolutely brilliant.

By the time A Simple Plan concludes, you realize you’ve been witnessing not a crime film or a dark comedy but an American tragedy. It’s not surprising that it has been relatively forgotten, when its competitors for the ‘98 canon include action films about the apocalypse, surreal satire about a man who lived inside a reality show, and the most realistic World War II film ever made. A Simple Plan is exquisite filmmaking that never once draws attention to itself. It’s a film about people that, through its attention to humanity, reveals the contours of a profoundly broken system. That’s the kind of movie that lasts, whether we know it or not.

Next Up in 1998 in Review: “The Thin Red Line”