Review of A Simple Plan (1998) by Sgt. C — 17 Feb 2015

(59%).

A largely paint by numbers morality tale in a similar shape to the much better Fargo, featuring a good central performance from Bill Paxton and more than decent support backing him up. The premise is one of such dramatic substance and fuel for "What would you do?" type debate that even a lousy writer such as Skip Woods, or Eli Roth could squeeze at least some intrigue out. Where this does come off the rails a bit revolve around the character's decisions being clearly wrong-footed from the start. And even though the characters featured are supposed to be dimwitted, it still makes for a film that doesn't really push the premise to any real limit because the characters couldn't make more of a hash of things even if they tried. This is still an interesting, well made film, and it's worth a look, but it just doesn't quite make it as a true future classic.