A Simple Plan – 2 stars

Sam Raimi’s Fargo without the sweep, innovation or strong characterizations.  It settles for snow and violence.

Three men, two of them brothers (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton) find money. They try to keep it. Things go terribly wrong.

Thornton was deservedly nominated for best supporting actor. He plays an alternatively canny and dimwitted local yokel who unravels as the heat increases. Thornton captures perfectly the essence of the childlike, simple brother who stays home to drink with his dog, immersed in something beyond his capabilities by his smarter, greedier brother (Paxton).

Unfortunately, Raimi’s direction is workmanlike and forgettable. In the end, however, the script sinks the ship. Paxton is dumber than a hound’s tooth. Worse, he is singularly uninteresting and he is the protagonist we are forced to follow, more so than Thornton.

Bridget Fonda plays his greedy wife, a transformation that takes her over in a millisecond.  In fact, it would be hard to cast two thinner actors than Paxton and Fonda.  Perhaps this was the strategy, to show everyday folks turned to greedy dullards, but dullards are dullards.

The plan simply wasn’t simple enough for these snoozers.