Search - A Simple Plan on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Violence, Not For Children, Profanity Movie Release: 1998 DVD Release: 06/22/1999 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 1 mins Studio: Paramount Members Wishing: 1 Genres: Drama, Crime Drama See Also: Simple Plan [Circuit City Exclusive] [Checkpoint], A Simple Plan

Based on Scott B. Smith's bone-chilling 1993 novel, A Simple Plan is a bit of a departure for horror film director Sam Raimi. Instead of flying eyeballs and dancing corpses, A Simple Plan is a taught crime thriller in the vein of Joel Coen's Academy Award-winning Fargo. Set during the white winters of Minnesota, this story tells the eerie tale of Hank and Jacob Mitchell (played by Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton) who, along with a buddy, find a downed single-engine plane buried in the snowy woods. Inside it is a decaying pilot and a bag carrying four million dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills. The men decide to hide the money until spring when the snow is melted and the plane is found. If no one notices the missing money at that time, they will split it and live a wealthy new life. A simple plan, right? Wrong. Much like Humphrey Bogart's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, things can only get worse, as distrust and greed creep into the minds of the principles. They find it difficult to decide which one gets to hold the money -- and even more impossible to keep from dipping into the stash until spring. And so on. It also becomes increasingly tough to keep a secret of this magnitude. And if all this doesn't get moviegoers' brains working, it seems there are suspicious characters in town who just may be able to link them to the plane, forcing the more dangerous and bloody question of what to do with those people and how to cover their tracks. ~ Chris Gore, All Movie Guide

Bill Paxton - Hank
Billy Bob Thornton - Jacob
Brent Briscoe - Lou
Bridget Fonda - Sarah
Jack Walsh - Tom Butler

One of the most overlooked films of 1998, A Simple Plan does not receive a treatment on DVD that will make it any more memorable. Both a modern morality play and a twisty suspense thriller, Plan marks Sam Raimi's first steps into more commercial films than the Evil Dead series or Darkman. Stepping away from the more eccentric camerawork of those films, Raimi reveals himself to be skilled at communicating suspense and human emotion. This makes the absence of a commentary track on the disc even more disappointing. Instead, only the film's effective theatrical trailer is included. The film itself is presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio and Dolby Digital Sound, both of which do justice to Alar Kivilo's winter cinematography and Danny Elfman's haunting score. With no production featurette, interviews, commentary, or additional insight, however, the DVD doesn't have much more to offer other than a good film. ~ Oliver Thornton, All Movie Guide