A Simple Plan Critic Reviews

One of the year's best films for a lot of reasons, including its ability to involve the audience almost breathlessly in a story of mounting tragedy.Read the full review

But [Raimi]'s instructed his fabulous Style to take a hike, and, working from Scott Smith's brilliantly reconfigured script from Smith's own (much darker) novel, delivers a piece that is severe and disciplined in its evocation of the cold terrors of fate.Read the full review

Lean, elegant, and emotionally complex -- a marvel of backwoods classicism.Read the full review

With elegant, clockwork construction, Smith has transplanted his novel of greed, betrayal and getting what you deserve to the screen, where it is told by director Sam Raimi with a spareness befitting the whiteness of its snowed-in setting.Read the full review

When you get the shivers watching this wintry tale unfold, it won't be from the cold.Read the full review

The plan in A Simple Plan grows exponentially complex once the first dollar is purloined, an act that makes this unpretentious parable one of the season's better 'what's-going-to-happen-next?' movies.Read the full review

The characters are at the heart of A Simple Plan, and the gruesome complexity of their interaction elevates this film to the level of a midwinter treat.Read the full review

The key differences are in emphasis and tone: “Fargo” is deadpan noir; A Simple Plan, with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton as Mutt and Jeff siblings, is a more robust Midwestern Gothic that owes as much to Poe as Chandler.Read the full review

Both simplifies and brings into focus the already simple and effective thriller.Read the full review