One twist too many.
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One twist too many. Perhaps one too few.
"Best Laid Plans" is one of those mystery thrillers you know would have been better had the filmmakers not tried to outdo themselves with plot shifts and filmic gimmicks every inch of the way. The movie has story lines within story lines, multiple flashbacks, bizarre lighting, and camera angles from all directions. Its most obvious progenitors are films like "The Usual Suspects," "The Spanish Prisoner," and "The Sting" but with nothing like their inventiveness or involvement.
When a writer and director try too hard to be clever and stylish, it can show through and spoil the fun. Instead of our being genuinely surprised by turns of events, we're busy anticipating them. Not even the ending of "Best Laid Plans" works because we're trying to outguess that scene, too, determined not to be caught off guard. When nothing untoward happens, we're disappointed.
For all that, the movie is passably entertaining, thanks to the energy of its three attractive young stars. Alessandro Nivola and Josh Brolin play Nick and Bryce, a couple of buddies. Nick is a penniless drifter working for a recycling plant in a small Nevada town, and Bryce is a college English teacher who is house-sitting a mansion full of rare artifacts. Reese Witherspoon plays Lissa, a girl Bryce picks up in a bar. Early one morning Nick gets a desperate call from Bryce. The girl he picked up and had sex with is now accusing him of rape. Worse, she's a minor, and he sees himself facing statutory rape charges, losing his job, and having his life ruined. Worse still, she's not gone. He has her tied up downstairs in the billiard room! Could Nick please, please, come over and help him? Then, opps, we find out in flashbacks that Nick knows the girl. Well, not only knows her, but....
The story involves plots and counter plots, false identities, a drug deal gone bad, larceny, frame ups, car theft, retribution, and whatever else the filmmakers could think of to fill an hour and a half. The director is Mike Barker, and "Best Laid Plains" is his U.S. feature-film debut. American audiences may know him from the fine British TV series, "Silent Witness." The writer is Ted Griffin, whose primary previous credit was the cannibal film, "Ravenous." They do everything they can to make their first film together a tour de force, failing to realize that greater simplicity would have served them better. There is enough photography through panes of glass, off of mirrors, and from the ceiling down to fill a textbook. Their story even leaves an unpleasant aftertaste, the tone suggesting that there is more honor among thieves than among friends.
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[release]3712[/release]