Category: Sam Raimi

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.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

By Marc S. Sanders

The Quick And The Dead is a gritty, stylish western that boasts a who’s who of great actors.  Some of which went on to magnificent careers.  I wish the story was a strong as the cast list though.  It’s watchable.  It’s intriguing. It’s also too repetitious.

Sharon Stone is Elle.  Otherwise known in these parts as The Lady.  Two minutes into the picture and my suspension of disbelief is withering away.  Not because this gunslinger cowboy is a cowgirl, but because Stone does not look like she fits in the Old West.  Her blond locks are shampooed and conditioned.  Her complexion perfectly made up without a hint of grime or dirt or sunburn.  Stone looks like she took one step off the Oscars red carpet and onto this set. Her costume with a scarf, leather pants, black rimmed hat, and spurred boots looks like its attempting its own kind of Clint Eastwood stranger.  Frankly, it appears to have leaped off the pages of an Old Navy catalogue.

Below Stone on the credit lineup is a much more redeemable list of characters.  Gene Hackman is Mayor Herod who has amped up his level of sinister from his Oscar winning performance in Unforgiven.  There’s also Ace Hanlon played by Lance Henrickson with a rare on-screen giddy grin, whose personal deck of cards consists of aces of spades for every man he’s killed. Sgt Cantrell is the flamboyant personality with the handlebar mustache, deep voice and toothy grin that actor Keith David proudly bears.  A kid named Leonardo DiCaprio plays up the youthful cockiness of an outlaw named The Kid.  All these folks are gunslingers participating in the sport of gunslinging.  Last one left standing is the winner.  Midway through though, Herod will up the ante and deem that the last one left alive is the winner.  Each one challenges another until a final winner is recognized.  One reluctant participant is played by a very youthful looking Russell Crowe.  Cort is a former fast draw, who is now a remorseful preacher for all of the killings he’s committed.  Herod is not entirely convinced and will antagonize Cort to throw his hand in the game.

Sam Raimi directs and Sharon Stone produces this slick small town modern day High Noon.  The problem though is that Raimi and screenwriter Simon Moore choose to only send up the climax of that classic Gary Cooper western over and over.  Time and again, two opponents line up at opposite ends of the street.  The townsfolk observe with close up tension shots.  The hands twitch their fingers next to the holsters and when the clock strikes twelve, the guns go off.  Raimi often gives you the impression that the one expected to live is the one who is going to topple over dead and then an edit shows the match went exactly like you thought it would. 

This whole supporting cast has enough presence and charisma to keep my attention, but the set ups are the same over the course of the film.  Cut in between are discussions within the saloon or the hotel rooms where Herod or the Lady rest.  Cort remains chained in the town square.  When the movie breaks away it goes to flashbacks of Stone’s character as a child when she once crossed paths with the devilish Herod. 

I like the polish that Sam Raimi brought to The Quick And The Dead.  Before Quentin Tarantino was glamourizing his pulp fiction to his own two dimensional westerns and war movies, Raimi was daring enough to let us look through literal bullet holes from the front to the back of his victims.  Holes through the hand, the chest and the head.  It’s fun.  There are also countless closeups of haunting music from Alan Silvestri as a new stranger enters a saloon to click his spurs on the wooden floor.  Quick draw action is how these pistols perform too.  Hangings are a part of any day as well.  All of this is familiar and standard to the B movies brought to us by Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns during the mid twentieth century, but now we have a modern day cast and some glossy cinematography.

I was ready for a worthy salute.  It just comes up short due to a lack of any depth in story.  Gunslinging quick draws are not as dynamic as a gunfight at the OK corral.  How much different is one dual draw going to be from the last one we watched five minutes ago?  Raimi’s camera points from behind each challenger.  The music builds louder and louder.  Zoom in shots of townsfolk cut in.  The minute hand on the clock tower moves closer and closer to the roman numeral twelve, and then…BANG BANG!!! (I’ve said this before, haven’t I?  Well, so does the movie.)

The Quick And The Dead is worth seeing especially for another scenery chewing villain from the great Gene Hackman.  I’ll never tire of watching him.  To see the beginnings of Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio’s potential is a real treat as well.  They all certainly have some acting moments that I loved digging up from this time capsule.  Character actors Keith David and Lance Henrickson break from the standard personas you’ll find on the rest of their resumes.  I just needed more of a variety to this town setting they got play in.  The déjà vu is too overdone.

Sharon Stone usually looks like she’s giving a so so community theatre audition.  It’s hard to take her seriously, the same way I would had Uma Thurman, Susan Sarandon or Geena Davis been cast as The Lady.  Those actresses work for their appearance to be appropriate for the setting of their films.  Look at Sharon Stone here in the dusty Old West.  Then look back to what Sarandon and Davis did in Thelma & Louise.  You’ll see right away, practically anyone else would have been more suitable for the lead of The Quick And The Dead.

DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Dileep Rao, David Paymer
My Rating: 8/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she’s going to hell.


Re-read that plot description above.  That’s pretty much the movie in a nutshell.  And it was directed by Sam Raimi getting back into his grindhouse-y horror zone after five years of hobnobbing with Columbia Pictures and their Spider-Man franchise.

In other words, it’s a movie showcasing a director getting back to what he does best.  And it is nothing if not effective.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a loan officer at a bank, tries to impress her boss by refusing to extend the home loan of an elderly woman, Sylvia Ganush, who is facing eviction.  Later that night, Mrs. Ganush accosts Christine in a parking garage (one of the movie’s many exceptionally effective scare sequences).  As revenge for rejecting her loan extension, Mrs. Ganush bestows a curse upon Christine: in three days, a demonic spirit will come for Christine’s soul, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

(We have already received a glimpse of what potentially awaits Christine during a horrifying prologue…and it is not good.  Helpful Tip for a Longer Life: Never piss off an old woman with a glass eye.)

Drag Me to Hell is not really trying to be “great”.  It’s a D-list story filmed by an A-list director.  It’s not concerned with the thematic dichotomy of good versus evil, or anything like that.  It is simply a delivery device for scares intended to jolt people out of their chairs every 5 or 10 minutes.

And, MAN, does it deliver.  There are sequences of poor Christine alone in her house, while something sinister prowls around outside, and eventually gets into the house…and I haven’t been that scared since I saw John Carpenter’s Halloween on VHS for the very first time.

There’s a creepy scene involving a single fly buzzing around Christine’s head while she sleeps, and then it alights on her face and crawls INSIDE HER NOSTRIL and then OUT THE OTHER ONE.  <shudder>  But then it moves towards her lips and starts to force its way INTO HER MOUTH…and it just makes your skin crawl in a way that’s hard to describe.  Accomplished with no blood or gore, just…eeyuck.

Mrs. Ganush herself makes a few encore appearances, just to keep things interesting, and then there’s a climactic séance at the house of a celebrated medium who once battled this particular evil spirit before.  This will certainly go down in movie history as one of the scariest/most gonzo séances EVER.  Without going into too many details, let me just say this: I could tell you the scene involves, at one point, a talking goat, and you might laugh, because what’s funnier than a talking goat, and it IS funny for the first couple of seconds…but that laughter will fade as soon as you see what happens next.  The word “bizarre” was invented for the séance in Drag Me to Hell.

That right there sort of encapsulates the general mood of this movie.  In all of his horror films, Sam Raimi’s sense of humor was always evident, most especially in Evil Dead 2 [1987] and Army of Darkness [1992].  In returning to the genre that started his career, he retains that gleeful, mischievous tone.  As horrifying as Drag Me to Hell is, it’s also pretty damn funny, even while we’re getting the bejeebers scared out of us.  (It’s hard to explain without getting into spoilers, but you’ll see what I mean when you watch it.)

So there you go.  It’s a horror movie that will make you laugh and shriek at the same time.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

…but I would advise checking your doors are locked before starting it. Just saying.