A SIMPLE PLAN (1998)

In Sam Raimi's rivetingly accomplished crime thriller, Hank (Bill Paxton), a small-town accountant, is wandering through the snowy woods with his dim-bulb older brother, Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), and Jacob's beer-guzzling buddy, Lou (Brent Briscoe), when they discover a crashed plane that contains $4 million. They hatch a plan to take the money, but their greed acts like truth serum, bringing the ugliest sides of their relationships burbling to the surface. A Simple Plan is lean, elegant, and emotionally complex -- a marvel of backwoods classicism. As Jacob, the born loser who takes in more than he appears to (his resentment gives him feelers), Thornton gives a memorable performance, as if Jim Varney were channeling Charles Laughton. The ironic kick of the movie is that Paxton's Hank, the one guy coolheaded enough to bring this crime off, is bound to these two impulsive, neurotic bums. Raimi has made the most gripping dramatization in years of the proposition that crime will always cost more than it pays.

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