My history with A
Simple Plan is very special. In 1998 I had seen lots of excellent movies
that I really admired, but had yet to find a perfect 10. On New Year’s Eve I
saw three movies. One of them was Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, a movie I didn’t have any significant expectations
for outside of being interested in Billy Bob Thornton and the premise of the
film: three ordinary men find a bag full of money. What should they do with it?
It was probably about halfway to two thirds of the way through when I had a
realization that the film was on its way to my standard of perfection if only
it could avoid any third act missteps. And then it made it. It arrived to the
end and Scott B. Smith, who adapted the screenplay from his own novel, had made
all the right choices and I stood in awe of this minor little film that was
simply astounding.
