A Simple Plan - review

Money is the root of all evil, and the more money, the more evil. In "A Simple Plan", the money's 4.4 million dollars, so it's not surprising that the mayhem that ensues leaves half a dozen people dead. More interesting is that the people who are most decent and moral on the surface turn out to be the most cold-blooded, calculating monsters, while the losers and no-good bums turn out to be the (anti-)heroes of this movie. The fact that this particular moral of the story is not emphasized at all is, I hope, intentional. It makes for the right amount of subtlety required by this otherwise pretty straightforward little tale. "Fargo", also about big heaps of money in a snow-covered Northern state of the US, is more absurd and caricaturistic, which, in my book, makes it a better movie. "A Simple Plan" is OK, but that's about it.