Category: Billy Bob Thornton

A SIMPLE PLAN

By Marc S. Sanders

“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”  – Benjamin Franklin, pictured on the one-hundred-dollar bill

A murder of crows is made especially prominent at the beginning of this dark, wintry fable from director Sam Raimi and writer Scott B Smith, based off of his novel, A Simple Plan.  

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve Day, Hank, his brother Jacob and Leon get swerved off a slippery Minnesota road while riding in a beat-up pickup truck. They come upon a crashed airplane buried under a blanket of snow in the woods.  Besides the pecking crows feasting on the corpse of a dead pilot, they uncover a duffle bag with over four million dollars; tons of bales of strapped hundred-dollar bills.  What should they do? Report the discovery to the police or secretly keep it to divide among themselves?

Hank (Bill Paxton) is the educated sensible member of the trio.  Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) is his dim-witted brother.  Leon (Brent Briscoe) is Jacob’s loudmouth drinking buddy.  After much debate, the men agree that Hank will hold on to the money until springtime.  By then, if no one is looking for the loot, then it surely can be shared among them.  

Easier said than done.

This is one of Bill Paxton’s best roles, not only because he’s a fine actor, but his character is constructed beautifully with one internal conflict after another.  He carries an appearance of a doting husband to his pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda, who I wish never retired from acting) and he’s well-liked by the folks of this town.  He’s also a protective brother to Jacob.   However, money changes people and hypocrisy and plotting turn this good man corrupt.

Billy Bob Thornton is brilliant in an Oscar nominated role. It’s not easy to portray the sweet dumb guy when your career has demonstrated how insightful you are as a winning screenwriter and actor (Sling Blade).  Jacob looks “lived in” within this sleepy town with a pair of broken eyeglasses, an old parka and boots.  He’s the troublemaker and the sheriff knows this schlub can’t take care of himself.  As Hank changes one way over the course of the film, Jacob literally transitions in a completely opposite direction of character.  Both approach their tests of ethics and morality differently, and it’s fair to say that a gift of simple logic and sensibility can be more of a curse rather than a blessing.

Bridget Fonda operates like a conniving Lady MacBeth as Hank’s wife Sarah.  She’s adorable and sweet as the happy couple await the delivery of their first child any day now.  What good fortune to come upon this money to help with living a lifetime of comfort and joy.  Sarah knows this is all going to work out, but what’s important is that Hank covers his tracks while also being especially cautious of Leon and Jacob’s reputation for carelessness.  Sarah has an answer for everything and a proactive approach to handle this surprise windfall.

Yet, the luck of one man is the demise of another, and another and maybe even another.  

A Simple Plan is anything but.  Too many people know what is discovered.  Even the inconvenience of snow-covered plains work against any kind of airtight solution.  Snow leaves tracks.  What if someone lets a simple, but curious, word slip?  What if someone wants his share sooner than agreed upon?  What if someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time? 

Scott B Smith changes the tune of his script over and over.  First, it questions the morality of man.  Later, it traverses into crime and cover up.  After that, A Simple Plan hinges upon survival while questioning a series of costs.

Because most of the characters in this small Minnesota town are blue collar and not formally educated, you might believe they lack the intuition to properly guard themselves or the ones they hold dear.  On the surface, this is a friendly community, and everyone bears a facade of innocence with Happy New Year greetings. Actually, desperation only enhances the thinking abilities of these people to do the most twisted of acts to protect what they consider their rightful, personal entitlement.  

Each act of extreme behavior seems justified in the eyes of Hank, Jacob, Sarah and Leon. I mean this is four million dollars we are talking about here.  Try to see it their way, and you’ll know what I mean.

BAD SANTA: Director’s Cut (2003)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Terry Zwigoff
CAST: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac, John Ritter
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 78% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The world’s worst department-store Santa experiences an existential crisis in between drunken benders and burgling department stores.

[Author’s note: This review is of the Terry Zwigoff-approved Director’s Cut, NOT the studio-released Unrated “Badder Santa” version created without Zwigoff’s input. The Director’s Cut improves on the original theatrical release, in my opinion, by removing a lot of extraneous scenes (the Advent Calendar shots, Willie teaching the Kid how to fight, etc.) while keeping some bits from the Unrated version, resulting in a leaner, darker, yet even funnier movie.]


I recently re-watched this movie with my girlfriend, first time for her, first time in a long time for me.  I had forgotten how relentlessly funny it is, specifically because of how vulgar, offensive, and, let us not mince words, dirty it gets.  I don’t know if it’s because this was the Director’s Cut as opposed to the original version, but I was also reminded of the earlier films of Kevin Smith.  It has all the coarseness and low-budget production values of Mallrats, but with a better story and a funnier script (all due respect to Mr. Smith).

The film opens with our “hero”, Willie T. Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) getting drunk and puking in an alley while dressed as Santa Claus.  This is the high point of the movie in terms of his character.  It’s all downhill from here.  Almost.  Sort of.  Anyway, we learn that he is involved in a somewhat-feasible scam with Marcus, a felonious dwarf (Tony Cox), and his rather materialistic wife, Lois (Lauren Tom, aka “Julie” from Friends…I was today years old when I learned that, thanks to Penni).  After Soke does the Santa thing, muttering profanities under his breath the whole time, Marcus stays behind after hours, deactivates the store’s security system, and lets Soke in the back so he can crack the store’s safe.  Meanwhile, Marcus steals whatever is on the list his wife gives him.  (I liked that little touch; he’s not a random thief, he’s a very SPECIFIC thief.)

One day, a literally snot-nosed kid (Brett Kelly) perches on Santa/Soke’s knee and solemnly tells him, “You’re not Santa”…then peppers him with questions about the reindeer, Mrs. Santa, the elves, ad infinitum, while Willie does his best to keep up through his alcoholic haze.  To say this is the start of a beautiful relationship is straining the definition of “beautiful” and “relationship”, but there is a point to all of it.  Trust me.

There’s more, much more, that’s been crammed into this barely ninety-minute-long movie.  The bartender (Lauren Graham) whose non-traditional sexual kink makes Willie implausibly irresistible.  The department store detective (Bernie Mac) who senses Willie and Marcus are trouble but has plans of his own.  The store manager (John Ritter) who claims he’s no prude but who can barely pronounce the words he heard coming from the dressing-room stall in the plus-size section where Willie was…well, modesty forbids.  Not to mention the Kid’s grandmother with the apparent obsession with making sandwiches.  And the profanity.  The virtually non-stop stream of profanity pouring from Willie’s mouth.  In a comic strip, his dialogue would be almost entirely composed of symbols and punctuation marks.

The executives at the now-defunct Dimension Films must have had cojones of solid rock to give this movie the green light.  Who is this movie for?  I’ve seen so-called “polarizing” movies before, but this achieves some kind of high bar.  Some of the lines must be heard to be believed.  Bernie Mac and Tony Cox have an exchange late in the film that belongs in some kind of cuss-word Hall of Fame.  I can imagine Kevin Smith watching that scene and nodding his head in a kind of salute.

As I’ve said many times before, I have always had a hard time watching movies or TV shows with loathsome characters as the leads, no matter how funny they are.  I have never been able to stomach Seinfeld for this reason, but I do acknowledge the ingenuity of the show’s writing and the comic skills of the actors.  I just find it a shame it’s all been attached to characters whom I would cross the street to avoid.  But here is Bad Santa, with a lead character who is not only alcoholic, but who is also suicidal, who haunts mall arcades to hit on teenage girls (“She said she was eighteen”, he says at one point), has no compunction about swearing around children, and beats the crap out of some local bullies who are picking on his new friend…then has the chutzpah to look at the beating as a turning point in his life.  “You need many, many, many f***in’ years of therapy”, Marcus tells him.

And yet I don’t just like this movie, I LOVE this movie, because it makes me laugh.  I’ve been sitting here trying to self-analyze my affection (if that’s the right word) for this film, but I am failing.  I can only report that it has some of the raunchiest dialogue I’ve ever heard, that it is definitely NOT appropriate for kids, that it is certainly NOT one of Penni’s favorite movies (kudos to her for making it all the way through), and that hand-carved wooden pickles stained with blood are not the best Christmas presents ever.

And I laugh like a loon whenever I watch it.  Sue me.