Un plan perfecto

The only reason I watched this is because my girlfriend threatened me to. This is movie is sooo desperate to be a post modern crime thriller that it looks and feels so relentlessly superficial.

Most scenes are decked out in unpleasant pastel colors and interiors are always lit with warm lights. It's nice to look at but has a student filmmaking feel to it that distracts me.

Something else that is quite unreal is the scene in which Nivola and Witherspoon discuss their forthcoming crime...on a roof in front of a neon sign on a sofa. Yeah...like people keep sofas on roofs in front of neon signs. This was obviously an attempt by the director to add a little sparkle to an otherwise BORING scene. Which is also the reason he throws in some cliched camera angles. It's a "film noir" you see...so diagonal shots on an ordinary scene are standard.

Composer Craig Armstrong was obviously hired at the last minute when the director heard the score for Romeo and Juliet to provide a superficial (that word again) soundtrack. It sounds like it belongs in a totally different movie. But perhaps this is a good thing. There isn't much theme but the music does evoke some weird feelings from us. Much like the feelings the characters have. It's cool and I wish more scores were this way.

The "twist" wasn't too obvious to me. Once it occurs it takes away all the tension and stress right away and will relieve you big time. It even manages to change the tone of the whole movie to light-hearted.

In case your wondering my girlfriend lists this as number 2 in her top 3 movies. Number 1 is Devils Advocate and 3 is Moonwalker...ugh!

I just picked Best Laid Plans up at the video store simply because there was nothing that looked better. Well, even though this isn't a great film, it was probably better than all those other videos in the store that day!

Best Laid Plansd is a dark crime thriller about Nick (Alessandro Nivola) who needs to raise some cash urgently to pay off some mob debts. He enlist his girlfriend Lissa (Reese Witherspoon) to seduce an old college buddy, Bryce (Josh Brolin), out of his cash and to cry rape. However, things do not go to plan when Bryce takes Lissa hostage and asks Nick for advice on what to do.

Director Mike Barker has really gone for the Tarantino side of filmmaking, which he does impressively. Surprisingly, Best Laid Plans is actually better than some of the Quentin Tarantino projects, including Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown. It is more intriguing and clever than those two films due to an excellent screenplay and some really good performances; particularly from the rather unlikeable Alessandro Nivola and the stunning Reese Witherspoon.

Not faultless, but perfectly watchable and recommendable.

I rate Best Laid Plans 7 out of 10.

"Best Laid Plans" has invited a lot of comparisons with "The Usual Suspects", but with its caper-plan-gone-awry storyline it reminded me more of "Palmetto" - except that it's not as good as either of those films. The whole set-up is rather laborious, and the payoff, while clever, doesn't really amount to much. Ultimately, this is a very unexceptional movie; you can easily find many of its equivalents in the "crime" section of your local video store. What makes it worth your time are the performances; Nivola, in particular, has an engagingly laid-back presence and Reese Witherspoon is good as usual. (**1/2)

What a shame that someone decided to make this movie. It attempts to be clever, it attempts to be deep, and it attempts to be dramatic, but fails on all counts. The director attempts to make a poor mans Usual Suspects, with a suspensful opening, including a extreme close up on a cigerette starting a fire. We think it will play into the evil plot further down the line. The characters are then shown close to the end of the story and play out a few of the scenes. They then cut back to the beginning. We are supposed to put together a puzzle. The movie's puzzle starts out interesting enough, but by the end we are left with a cop out. A weak ridiculous ending where there are no consequences for the actions taken, a happy hollywood fairy tale. And the cigerette imagery at the opening, barely plays into the plot at all. An excuse to put a cigerette starting a fire at the beginning of a movie. Suffice to say, this movie sucks. The performances of the actors are intelligent and well played.

This was a pleasant surprise. I really didn't know what to expect, but what I got was a very intelligent movie with more than enough twists and turns to keep things rather unpredictable. It took a little too long to get everything set up properly, and it perhaps had one twist too many, but overall, it was a great film with strong performances by Alessandro Nivola and Reese Witherspoon. Definitely worth checking out.