A Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton jag from One False Move. Directed by Sam Raimi from a screenplay and novel by Scott B. Smith. We're a long way from Evil Dead here; far closer to Shallow Grave and Breaking Bad with a dash of wintry Fargo.
Three dumb characters (Thornton, Paxton and Brent Briscoe) discover a plane buried under a snow drift while out seeking vengeance on a fox that has (further) wrecked Thornton's ute. In the plane is a vast pile of cash that provides the nemesis the production code used to require. Paxton's been to college and married the most eligible girl in town (Bridget Fonda as a Lady Macbeth) and convinces the others of a semi-plausible plot to keep the loot. Almost immediately Billy Bob's shtick wears thin, Briscoe's thinner and we're stuck with Paxton's limited range of facial expressions. I was much relieved when Thorton called time.
The ensuing plot is overly contrived. There are an excess of guns. There are unexplained happenings, like the arrival of an FBI agent. I think the goal was to provoke what-would-you-do post-movie chatter, a sort of 1990s trolley experiment.
Roger Ebert: four stars. He is ready to accept these are "the consequences of criminal action" whereas we now know that the actual result is more likely to be a presidency. He feels the performances were flawless; I could only shudder at the dinner table scene where Paxton and Fonda work their way up to getting shouty and histrionic. Janet Maslin. She paired it with Affliction.
