A Simple Plan

Lean, elegant, and emotionally complex -- a marvel of backwoods classicism.Read 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 Full Review »

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 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 Full Review »

Holds us in a state of horrified empathy.Read Full Review »

As straightforward in narrative as it is gut-wrenching in effect, A Simple Plan is a sort of slow-motion skid down an icy blacktop— it's a movie you watch with a mounting sense of dread...[It's] an extremely credible thriller and an affecting brother-story.Read Full Review »

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

The role of Jacob is greatly expanded from the book, and the unsatisfying way that Smith and Raimi resolve the brothers' relationship in the movie is the only major change--major compromise--made in transporting the novel to the screen.Read Full Review »