Very
reminiscent of the work of him long-time collaborators, the Coen brothers,
Raimi's latest film is also in the Shallow Grave genre: what do you do if
you find a lot of money? In this case, $4.4m in a downed plane, and Paxton and his two less sure-footed
conspirators decide to keep it and not tell anyone. Except, as you'd
expect, it's not that simple, and things gradually spiral out of control
into tragedy of near-Shakespearean scale. An extremely moral tale, proving
honesty is definitely the best policy, with Thornton outstanding,
even if the role as a dim-witted yokel is scarcely anything but familiar
territory. The tension builds as the body-count climbs, and Paxton must
deceive his wife (Fonda), as well
as the suspicious local sheriff, until an FBI agent turns up, looking for
the loot. But is he really what he seems? By this stage, I was growing
familiar with the edge of my seat, and the climax delivers more than
satisfactorily. Crunchy, effective and enough to make you pray you never
stumble across a large quantity of apparently abandoned loot.
B+
