Critic Reviews
81
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
24(86%)
mixed
3(11%)
negative
1(4%)
Showing 28 Critic Reviews
100
But [Raimi]'s instructed his fabulous Style to take a hike, and, working from Scott Smith's brilliantly reconfigured script from Smith's own (much darker) novel, delivers a piece that is severe and disciplined in its evocation of the cold terrors of fate.
100
With elegant, clockwork construction, Smith has transplanted his novel of greed, betrayal and getting what you deserve to the screen, where it is told by director Sam Raimi with a spareness befitting the whiteness of its snowed-in setting.
100
Lean, elegant, and emotionally complex -- a marvel of backwoods classicism.
100
One of the year's best films for a lot of reasons, including its ability to involve the audience almost breathlessly in a story of mounting tragedy.
100
In one of the sweetest ironies of the entire film year, Sam Raimi has made an A-movie with the soul of a B-movie classic.
90
When you get the shivers watching this wintry tale unfold, it won't be from the cold.
90
As straightforward in narrative as it is gut-wrenching in effect, A Simple Plan is a sort of slow-motion skid down an icy blacktop— it's a movie you watch with a mounting sense of dread...[It's] an extremely credible thriller and an affecting brother-story.
90
Holds us in a state of horrified empathy.
90
Money Can't Buy You Happiness. It hasn't been this vividly re-examined in decades, and we're the richer for it.
90
An unleashed Raimi may be a more exciting moviemaker, but there's something to be said for the virtues of a good story well told, which describes A Simple Plan down to its last shivery snowflake.
