The “simple plan” is to first split the money and then to split Wichita early in the morning towards much warmer climates. However, fate has her own plans.
When Charlie stops by at the bar before going home he cannot help but come across too relaxed and too smug for comfort to his love interest and tough-cookie Renata (Connie Nielsen). This feline blonde can smell BS from a mile and she immediately knows something's afoot with Charlie.
There is also the matter of this executioner Roy (Mike Starr) who is looking for Charlie all over the town. How will Charlie spend the night without letting the cat out of the bag and leave in one piece in the morning? That's the dilemma.
Things get even more hairy when he runs into Pete (Oliver Platt), who married Charlie's former patrician beauty of a wife. Pete makes good money and he is a solid provider but he is not a happy man. On that particular night, he is drunk as a skunk and he latches onto Charlie like a pilot fish would to a shark. Pete character provides the humorous counterpoint necessary in this otherwise grim film noir.
In the third act, we follow the “trail of Coen Brothers” straight into a bloody hell that could only be cooked up by Tarrantino. The sequence in which Vic and Charlie are getting rid of Roy is a true “Fargo”-like crime masterpiece. I have rarely seen humor balanced this well with sheer horror of it.
The final sequence is a no holds barred “reconciliation” between Charlie, Vic, Renata, and Big Bad Bill (Quaid is perfect in this only scene he has throughout the film). With beats that reminds one strongly of those in “Blood Simple,” the participants in this terror tango settle the score among themselves while the two million bucks in cash is waiting for the victor in its black leather bag still carrying the tag “V.I.C.”
The film ends with Charlie and Pete driving out of Wichita on a dreary Christmas Day, with the money bag sitting next to Charlie on the passenger seat. We do not know where they are going but we can only guess that both feel a very bad chapter in their lives is closed and a new one can now begin – if, that is, Charlie can evade the law long enough to build that new life for himself and digest the cold and bitter fruits of his “Ice Harvest.”
=================================================
Visit http://scriptboiler.blogspot.com today for FREE and ORIGINAL movie plots and character ideas.
=================================================
Source: www.articlesbase.com
