Best Laid Plans (1999)

Next up in recommendations was in response to my review on The Goonies (HERE) from Jack Flacco. He suggested me to check out Best Laid Plans for Josh Brolin‘s performance.  Jack has a wonderful site full of articles about zombies and he features a few very fun segments: Monday Mayhem, Women Who Wow Wednesday and Freedom Friday.  Definitely check it out if you haven’t yet.  For now, let’s check out what he asked me to watch.

Director: Mike Barker

Cast: Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Terrence Howard, James Marsh

In the small town of Tropico, within a few months, Nick (Alessandro Nivola) loses his father, the insurance money and needs money to get out of his current life.  He does end up meeting his girlfriend Lissa (Reese Witherspoon).  However, when his coworker Barry (James Marsh) lets him in a deal to drive away after a seemingly easy robbery, he gets tracked down the next day and to stay alive, he needs to be able to find money to cover his (uncompensated) cut and a bit more. When his school friend Bryce (Josh Brolin) calls him up out of nowhere, he derives the perfect plan to do it with a little help from Lissa.  Unexpectedly, a panic call in the middle of the night from Bryce proves that something went wrong with the initial plan and he has to figure out a way out.

Best Laid Plans is a decent crime thriller.  At certain points, we really feel the intensity of the situation.  We have a pretty above average cast here with Reese Witherspoon being my favorite even though she didn’t have too much screen time. It has a good plot but somehow, it did take me a while to connect with all the characters as much, especially that of Josh Brolin’s  Bryce. Most of the time, I wanted to punch him in the face because he reminded me of the annoying classmates I had in high school.  Maybe he was supposed to be that way.

Josh Brolin actually played a lesser part to the this movie’s lead, Alessandro Nivola’s Nick.  I really like this character actually and this guy really acted the hell out of the script.  He was possibly the character that I connected the most with, not that I ever got in any of his situations.  Its the calm nature that he has that made me wonder how he was going to get out of the situation he was in.

I’ve always liked Reese Witherspoon.  I usually watch her in chick flicks (like Legally Blonde) but as Lissa and in her fake identity, she really was the one that had to sacrifice the most.  As much as I’d like to say, Nick was the loser in this, she lost a whole lot more especially seeing as the situation did go south.  Plus, Reese Witherspoon is definitely a charming actress.

BUT, you know what bothered me in this movie.  It was shot pretty well and the mood and tone was set well to match the situation.  Lighting was done good.  There was a great cast with an entertaining script BUT, I laughed at the ending.  The ending was the wrapping up the movie in the most unexpected way.  I have to give it this, it was original and unique but hell, if thats the morals of the story, its totally wrong to even want to know that.  If you saw this, you’d probably know what I mean, and you can email me or message me or something and tell me to see if thats what it was.

Overall, do I like this movie? I do say that its definitely a good entertaining movie with some good performances from the cast and an intense enough story however, beware of how you’ll feel at the ending.  My reaction was something like “WTF??? LOL *shakes head*” Thats just because I don’t enjoy ending particularly like that but after giving it a night to sleep on it, its not a bad movie.  It won’t ruin your day and maybe you might enjoy the ending and its just a personal preference for me.  Give it a shot, its worth that at the very least 🙂

Have you seen this? Do you like crime thrillers?

Thanks to Jack for recommending this to me! I loved the performances in this even if I wanted to punch Josh Brolin but I did enjoy Reese Witherspoon  a lot, and other than the ending, it was a pretty good movie! Remember to drop by his blog and show him some support 🙂

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