Like the Coen brothers' FARGO, Sam Raimi's A SIMPLE PLAN is an ice-cold neo-noir as chilling and bleak as its snow-covered Minnesota locale. When two brothers, straightlaced family man Hank (Bill Paxton) and simple-minded loser Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton)--along with Jacob's unabashed town-drunk friend Lou (Brent Briscoe)--find 4.4 million dollars inside a crashed plane, they believe they've found the financial answer to all their problems. All they have to do is keep it a secret until the plane is discovered and any investigations are completed. This proves to be easier said than done, however, when the three men (as well as Hank's surprisingly calculating wife, Sarah, played by Bridget Fonda), each with their different reasons, begin to lose trust in the others. When an FBI agent (Gary Cole) comes to town, the tension becomes explosive, peeling away layers of familial resentment and resulting in betrayal, deceit, and, ultimately, murder. Thornton's brilliantly understated and profoundly moving performance was recognized by the Academy with a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, while the taut script, by crime writer Scott B. Smith from his own novel, was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

DVD Features:

Keep Case
Widescreen
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Surround - English

Distributor Notes: Based on Scott Smith's bone-chilling blockbuster 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 movie-goers' right-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.

Billy Bob Thornton: Screenwriter/Actor
Bill Paxton: American Actor
Brent Briscoe: SCREENWRITER
Bridget Fonda: American actress, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
Gary Cole: American TV/Film Actor
Chelcie Ross: Supporting Actor
Jack Walsh: 
Peter Syvertsen: 
Tom Carey: Actor
John Paxton: American Screenwriter
Becky Ann Baker: Actress, NIGHTS IN RODANTHE, SPIDER-MAN 3

Sam Raimi: Director, EVIL DEAD

James Jacks: Executive Producer
Adam Schroeder: Producer

Michael Polaire: PRODUCER\"EYE FOR AN EYE"

Scott B. Smith: Screenwriter & novelist, "A Simple Plan"

Eric Beason: Editor
Arthur Coburn: Editor

"Billy Wilder meets the Coen brothers, in Raimi's quietly powerful adaptation of Scott Smith's roman noir..."
"...A morality tale of steadily mounting tension....[A] sharp, subtle work..."
"...Its emotional power and subtlety put it in a class of its own..."
"...Lean, elegant, and emotionally complex -- a marvel of backwoods classicism..." -- Rating: A
"...Well acted and tautly assembled..." -- 3 out of 4 stars
"...Gripping and unsettling....When you get the shivers watching this wintry tale unfold, it won't be from the cold..."
"...One of the most touching noirs yet made..."