Simply Perfect

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is not the worst film I ever saw. But it was in the competition.This film makes a mistake many suspense films make -- there is no character that the audience can really root for. Every character here is sleazy and a poor excuse for a human being. In fact, I feel dirty from just watching this film.When I began watching, I thought this film showed some promise as a thriller. It didn't take long for the film to descend into not just violent behavior, but I would say deviant behavior. And there's a difference between violence and suspense. And, in the ending, my contention that each of the characters is pathetic is confirmed.However, there is one good thing to say about the film -- the acting is decent. In my view, Josh Brolin is a very good actor, and I think he does very well here. This film, however, was made in his early years before he was a known quantity.I am not familiar with Alessandro Nivola at all, but his acting here was quite good. He seems to have a decent career; I'll have to watch for him.And then we come to Reese Witherspoon. I think Witherspoon is a good actress, and she is effective here, although this was also, for her, before she became well known. There's always been something that made me uncomfortable with Witherspoon, even though I acknowledge her acting ability. I can't explain it, but I felt it more so in this film.Do I recommend this film? No, unless you just want to see 3 actors in their early careers.Am I glad I watched it? No. Will I watch it again. Never.It flopped, and there are reasons for that.

„The best laid plans" is quite obviously inspired by David Mamet's movies . It tries to imitate Mamet style , but fails . The direction is lack luster . The plot twists are delivered without subtlety and movie is rather boring . Add to that a rather weak acting (even coming from Josh Brolin and Terrence Howard) and disaster is ready .Well , it isn't really a disaster . The movie is watchable . Sometimes a good dialogue appears and the guy who plays the drug dealer is quite good . Still , I can't shake off the feeling that David Mamet could do wonders with this story . The creators of this movie have nice twist at the end that definitely reminds me of Mamet . Unfortunately the emotional impact of that twist is strangely small. Nothing before and after that twist could be reward for audience patience.With better direction , acting and more tight screenplay "TBL" had a chance to be a good movie . It is however just a forgettable Saturday night entertainment.I give it 3/10.

Lissa (Reese Witherspoon) accuses Bryce (Josh Brolin) of rape, and then the film unfolds in interesting ways as we see how Nick (Alessandro Nivola) plays a part in her past and their future.The film relies on the universal desires for love, sex and money. Bryce just wants to get laid, Lissa pretty much just wants love but Nick wants both love and money. His plans to get that money get in the way of other dead-end criminals also wanting money. As the film's title suggests, no plans go quite as according to plan. The various twists in getting the plans foiled weren't particularly ingenious but they were well done. I never quite knew what was coming next, but I always wanted to find out. A crime drama thriller with some crimes but minimal violence, and although it seems a bit slow there is enough intrigue to keep the suspense level, or at least interest, up."Best Laid Plans" stars three great actors at the beginning of their careers, and each proved why they have become the respected-stars they are. I recommend it to fans of crime drama thrillers and to fans of Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, or Alessandro Nivola.

**SPOILERS** Very over plotted film about a plan within a plan within a plan that in reality turns out to be no plan at all. This all has to do with this shiftless and self absorbed dude Nick, Alessandro Nivola, who's looking to hit it big on his old man's death.Nick's dad as it turned out was about as rotten and dishonest as he is. Like the saying goes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or in pop's case the tree is not that far from where the apple landed, in that he forfeited his six figure life insurance policy by omitting that he was suffering from liver disease which, due to a lifetime of heavy drinking, was the cause of his death. It also came to Nick's attention that his deceased dad owed the IRS $200,000.00 in back taxes which had his house, that Nick lived in and hoped to own, put on the auction block in order to pay the taxes off. Stuck working at a local recycling plant Nick wants nothing more then to quit his dead end job and go on to bigger and better, as well as easier, things. Like becoming a beachcomber on the Florida Coast with a fat bank account and stock portfolio to live off.This, Nick's future plans, as we soon see is to blow up in Nick's face when he gets involved in a robbery, with him being the wheel-man, of a local drug's dealers who's known in the movie credits as the "Bad Ass Dude", Rocky Carroll. Nick together with his two friends Barry & Jimmy, James Marsh & Terrence Howard, rip off the Bad Ass Dude's weekly take of some $40,000.00 that he left at Jimmy's place for safe keeping. As things turn out Nick ends up getting kidnapped by the Bad Ass Dude's henchmen and brought to his hideout where he's given a lesson in both economics and water-boarding. Told by the Bad Ass Dude to come back with his share of the money he ripped off him-$15,000.00-or else Nick has no choice but to get his sweet and innocent girlfriend Lissa-short for Mellisa- played by the cute and sexy Reese Witherspoor involved in order to save his own sorry and pathetic behind. The plan that both Nick and Lissa cook up is to get Nick's rich collage buddy, who just happens to be visiting, Bryce, Josh Brolin, into a very compromising position so that he'll pay anything, including the $15,000.00 that Nick's owes the Bad Ass Dude, to get out of.***SPOILERS*** The brutal and very economically conscious Bad Ass Dude gives himself away right from the get go in his very elaborate and deep understanding of the US as well as the world's economic conditions. He struck me as just the kind of guy that's needed to get the United States, as well as world, economy back on its feet and out of this now raging 1930's like economic recession. This made me wonder why he's in the dangerous business, where one's average life expectancy is rarely over 30, of drug dealing in the first place! As for the sniveling and wetting in his pants Bryce, in him being set up on a rape and murder charge by Nick & Lissa, you could only hope that he learns something from all this by realizing that being the selfish jerk that he is, as was all his life, can result into serious consequences that he can't either pay or lie his way out of. And when it came to Lissa she by far was the most ridicules of the lot in her actions at the end of the movie, in regard to her sleazy boyfriend Nick, that made me wonder if the psychical trauma that she suffered throughout the film effected her mind as well as her body!