A Simple Plan

A Simple Plan is a thriller in the snow, made two years after Fargo by Sam Raimi, a friend of the Coens. This movie though is not a simple Fargo rip-off, but a masterpiece that is one of the best movies of the nineties.

The main characters are Hank, Jacob and Lou. Hank is an educated man who went to college, but struggles to make ends meet, now his wife is pregnant. Jacob is Hank's brother. He is not very well adjusted socially, mostly because he is not very intelligent, but he tries hard to live the best life he possibly can. Lou is his best friend. He is a bit of a simpleton, out of a job and supported by his wife. One day these three man find a bag with more then four million dollar in it, in a fallen plane.

Jacob and Lou want to split it, but Hank says that is stealing and they should bring it to the police. Hank doesn't have much moral problems with stealing. His problem is that it might get you arrested. They eventually agree that Hank should keep the money for awhile and if after some time no one searches for it they'll split it.

Hank returns home with the movie and it's here that the movie shows it's greatness for the first time. Hank asks his wife, also a college graduate, whether it's hypothetically all right to keep money you've found in a fallen plane. His wife says that it is wrong of course, and the person that finds it should return it. She quickly changes her mind when she sees the money. We all may now what's right and cast judgments on others when they do something wrong. But that is meaningless if we don't act the same way in practice as we think we should theoretically. And many people don't. The movie constantly reminds us of this, and nowhere better than in this scene. The movie also seems to argue that we should not act according to the law, because it is the law and we will get punished if we don't. We should act according to the law because it's the morally right thing to do. And throughout the movie Hank has to do things against the law. He doubts a lot of time about whether he should do it or not. But he doesn't doubt first and foremost because of the moral consequences of his actions, but because of the legal ones. When he doubts whether to kill someone who may cause him problems, he does this not because killing is wrong, but because it might get him to jail.

Jacob, brilliantly played by Billy Bob Thornton, may not be intelligent and a bit of a social misfit, but what makes his situation poignant is the fact that he knows it. He knows that he doesn't have a great life. And he also knows that no matter how hard he tries, his life won't get much better. The money can be very useful to him. But when he accidentally hurts a man and his brother then kills the man, he wants to stop everything and give the money to the police. His conscience does hurt when a man dies because of him.

In the end Hank does not get caught for any of his crimes, but due to him a lot of people have died, some dear to him, and he has lost the money. All the trouble was for nothing and Hank is worse off than he was at the beginning of the story.

I won't tell much more about this movie, because the story is full of surprising twist and turns which should not be spoiled.