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MOVIE REVIEW

Best Laid Plans

MPA Rating: R-Rating (MPA) for language.

Reviewed by: Brett Willis
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Very Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults
Genre: Drama/Suspense
Length: 1 hr. 32 min.
Year of Release: 1999
USA Release:
Scene from The Best Laid Plans
Relevant Issues
Movie Poster—Best Laid Plans

What is Relativism? Answer (Wikipedia)

truth

lies

sin

God

God

How can we know there’s a God? Answer

What if the cosmos is all that there is? Answer

If God made everything, who made God? Answer

Featuring Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Rocky Carroll, Michael G. Hagerty, Terrence Howard, Jamie Marsh
Director Mike Barker
Producer Alan Greenspan, Betsy Beers, Chris Moore, Sean Bailey, Nancy Paloian-Breznikar, Mike Newell
Distributor Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Trademark logo.20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company

This “film noir” offering is built on a series of “nothing is as it seems” plot twists. At first it appears to be a straight-up drama, but far from it.

In the opening, Nick (Alessandro Nivola), is contacted by his desperate friend Bryce (Josh Brolin) who has a serious problem with a girl (Reese Witherspoon). And that’s about all I can say without giving anything away. The acting is very good and the twists are entertaining, but there’s nothing to warrant a second viewing.

Content Warnings: Profanity is extreme. There’s some on-screen violence. There’s one brief simulated sex scene with no clearly visible nudity, and an implied sex scene which is shown only as a man holding down a woman’s wrist. All of the main characters have serious moral flaws and several of them are willing to break rules in order to solve their problems, so the film might be considered a study on relativism.

Some of the content—such as a drug dealer from the ’hood justifying his activity by quoting at length from Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”—seems far-fetched. Such apparently out-of-place material may (or may not) be a “clue” to the viewer.

Recommended only for mature viewers who enjoy this genre.


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Movie Critics
…an inept low-budget thriller …about a double cross gone wrong, never musters the cleverness to let us imagine what the plan might have looked like had it actually gone right. …slipshod attempts at intrigue. The title pun—yes, it means exactly what you think—is a fair indication of the movie’s puerile deviousness. Grade: F
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly