Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1998

The Contenders:

Gods and Monsters (winner)
Out of Sight
Primary Colors
A Simple Plan
The Thin Red Line

Descent into Hell

Film: A Simple Plan
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

Recently, a few people around the country won a share of the massive Powerball jackpot and have gotten to experience the dream of suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a vast fortune. It’s a common dream. In movie terms, three movies of the last 20 or so years have taken a dark vision of finding a fortune. Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave looked at the psychological aspects of three people who suddenly can’t trust each other when their roommate drops dead while holding onto millions. A similar basic story in the hands of the Coen brothers yielded No Country for Old Men. It’s the movie that falls chronologically in the middle of those, Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan that is perhaps the darkest version of that basic story.

Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton) is a fairly regular guy working in a feed store in a small Minnesota town. In fact, the only thing that really distinguishes him from almost everyone else is the fact that he is college educated. His wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) works at the library and is pregnant and due any day. One night, Hank is out with his slow brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob’s friend Lou (Brent Briscoe). A fox runs in front in Jacob’s truck, and Jacob steers into a tree. His dog chases the fox and the three men go looking for the dog. What they find is not the dog, but a crashed small plane with a dead pilot. Also in the plane is a large duffel bag holding more than $4 million in banded stacks of hundreds.