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Show Fl4 The Salt Lake Tribune CALENDAR Friday, January 22, 1999 The Strange Journey ‘Simple Plan’ Probes Hearts ofDarkness Of ‘A Simple Plan’ KkK'E A Simple Plan BYSEANP. MEAI THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE asks, ‘Do you ever feel evil?’, it Here’s how Hollywood usually works: Someone comesup with a story idea, or some young writer sells his screenplay, and a producer buys it. The producer then hires a director and some big stars tion. Jacob is the one who’s worried about that.” Rudin hired John Boorman (‘Deliverance,” “Excalibur”) to direct. Boorman scouted locationslast winter andcast Bill Pax- — each of whomhiresa writer to hasn't even occurred to Hank. Hankisjustsilenced by the ques- Hank and Jacob. “He was about ing ending. [Paramount] canceled it on him,” Smith said. Boorman could not That's why you sometimes see multiple writers credited for one film (“‘Stepmom” hadfive, for example). It’s also why so many movies have all the flavor of warmed-over oatmeal — the “too manycooks’ metaphor incarnate. What happened with “A Simple Plan” is what almost never happens in Hollywood: Instead of a director working with five writ- ers, one writer found himself workingwithfive directors. hang around while Rudin negoti- ated with Paramount — he had made commitments for his next film, the Irish crime drama “The General.” Thornton also had a narrow window of opportunity, “so that’s when they brought in Sam Raimi,” Smith said. Raimiis best knownfor “Dark- man,” “The Quick and the Deas and the cult favorite “Evil Dead” trilogy. Raimi is also a good pal of the Coen Brothers (he directed who adaptedhisbest-selling 1993 and was second-unit director on novel “I thought, with all the travails that it went through, that someone would have the bright ideathat I was the problem.” Smith’s odyssey began before his novel, a dark tale about two Coen connection led outside ob- away from whereI did — I grew up outside Toledo, which is where the story takes place in the book,”” Smith said. “He got the story, he got the people. He understood it. He didn’t want this great ironic cling but otherwise peaceful. Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton)is out brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thorn- . He wasn't in it for the humor, he wasn’tinit to tell a hip story. (Brent Briscoe). They come across the wreckage of a small plane, people. Heidentified with them. He was in it to get people in- volved, and try to move them.” The finished product has made many critics’ top 10 lists, and Thornton's performance is being “The servers to wonder if Smith’s snowboundstory would be turned into a “Fargo” variation. “He grew up maybe 40 minutes begins on a winter day, crowscir- in the woods with his dimwitted tion. Smith is working on his second novel, claiming “the book I'm Hudsucker Proxy”). The tion of Scott B. Smith'sbest seller distance, making fun of these talked about for an Oscar nomina- rector-producer Mike Nichols (“Primary Colors”) bought the screen rights — and asked Smith, who had neverwritten a screen- Director Sam Raimi’s adapta- Scott B. Smith adapted his best-selling 1993 novel into the film “A Simple Plan.” their first script, “Crimewave,”’ brothers who find a duffel-bag of ill-gotten cash, was published. Di- an examination of the darkest reaches of the soul. 10 days away from shooting when “I was surprised no one ever fired me,” said Scott B. Smith, ies do. Not because of the snowy “Fargo”-esque locations but because of the grimly effective way it turns from a simplethriller into ton and Billy Bob Thornton as punch up a particular character’s dialogue or rework an unsatisfy- Winter white and emotional darkness meld in this tense thriller. BY SEA} ‘S THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE “A Simple Plan” sends chills down yourspine the way few mov- writing now is so unfilmable.” But bringing “A Simple Plan” to the screen has changed how he watch- es movies. ‘I was a very naive moviegoer, a very passive moviegoer. I just went and absorbed it,” he said. “NowI look at what's going on and ask, ‘Why is there a voiceover?’ Bill Paxton,left, Billy Bob Thornton in “A Simple Plan.” ton) and Jacob's drunkenpal Lou andinsideit a bagfilled with $100 bills — $4.4 million worth. Jacob and Lou start thinking about ways to spend the loot, which Loucalls “the American dream in a damr. duffel-bag.” Hank, though, worries about the consequences and suggests theyturn the moneyin. But as he thinks about the money — and about his dead-end job and his wife, Sara (Bridget Fonda), whois due to give birth within days — he reconsiders. They agree to split the money, but Hank forces the guysto wait, to make sure nobody is looking forit. It is the waiting that wears on Hank’s mind, breeding distrust for his partners and paranoia that they will be caught. Those feelings lead Hank to even nastier deeds. The money also changes those around him — Jacob be- comes broodingand sullen, while Sara schemes to cover Hank’s tracks. Raimi’s past films — “Dark- man,” “The Quick and the Dead” and the “Evil Dead” series — showed a flashy visualstyle, but never the quiet emotional depth seen here. With Smith adapting his ownbook intoa strong screenplay, Raimiprobesinto the hearts of these desperately searching characters — Hank, who thought a college degree would free him from small-town life; Jacob, aching from years ofloneliness; and Sara, whose tender exterior camouflages a Machiavellian tiger. Paxton showsa tortured yearn- ing he hasn't really shown since “One False Move.” Thornton (who starred with Paxton in that 1991 noir thriller, which he co- wrote) downplays the showy acting of “Sling Biade,” revealing a pained soul behind the stringy hair and rotting teeth. Fonda’s subtly snaky performance is the best work she has ever done. “A Simple Plan” (rated R for violence and language) weaves a calm but penetrating tale of deception and self-deception. these people do — but from the realization that we might do the samethingin a similarsituation. play, to do the adaptation. “He was very enthusiastic about the book,” Smith recalled in a recent phone interview. “He told me, essentially, to go home, take the book scene-by-scene, put in screenplay form.” The result was a 256-pagescreenplay, equiv- alent to 4% hoursofscreentime. ‘At that point, I think he panicked, and he decided he'd just produce Nichols broughtin BenStiller, the comic actor whoalsodirected “The Cable Guy.” “Ben basically taught me how to write a screenplay,’ Smith said. “I made the typical first-time screenwriter'’s mistake of just thinking of the sereenplayas dialogue. He really emphasized the visual element, and that’s really how you tell a story on film — you think about what's happening visually, and the dialogue is much less important. That a real revelation. It madeit a lot morefun to write the screenplay.” Stiller was about a month away 3 from shooting, Smith said. The hitch came with the ting of Nicolas Cage, whose salary was morethan Stiller's sparse budget could bear. Savoy Pictures, which was bankrolling the movie, then brought in John Dahl (“The Last Seduction,” Rounders”) to bring his film-noir sensibility. But be- RYTHING YOU'D EVER WANT TO GET ON-LIN =ON US fore Dahl couldgetrolling, thefi- nanciallystrapped Savoystopped making movies — and sold the project to producer Scott Rudin, who took it to Paramount Rudin urged Smith to alter the story’s focus from the brooding family man Hank totherelation- ship between Hank and his more socially awkward brother Jacob. Smith, to his surprise, didn’t have a problem changin, he had lived with for made sense to me, na Smith said, “If I haddi or thought it wasreallystupid, I would have tried to argue. ThenI would have sucked it up and walked away As he wrote and rewrote the script, Smith said, “I became more absorbed with the chara ters, Hank and Jacob. At the be: ginning of the film, Hank thinks of himself as superiorto Jacob relatively successful, self-confi dent. And having the moviepeel it awaylayer by layer, so that we see Jacobis really the one who has a deeper understanding of the fam- ily and a deeper integrity or wisdom in the world When Jacob There's never been a better time to get on-line with U S WEST.net. Because right now when youorder we'll jive you a 56k modem (a $149 value’), two e-mail boxes, even your first month of service. 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