Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
You mean he did the wrong things for what he thought were the right reasons, and it turned out that he was just doing wrong?
Except it’s fairly clear from the start that he doesn’t entirely believe they are the right reasons. Rather he thinks somehow he can make this whole mess right if he just keeps going strong on the current path he’s on.
The Quote of the Day series is the easiest way to start a fun conversation on Ricochet. We have only 2 days left on the June Signup Sheet. We even include tips for finding great quotes, so choose your favorite quote and sign up today!
Ummm, is there a way whose end isn’t death? That would be helpful to know about.
I loved that movie. I saw it without any foreknowledge, which is often the best way to see a film. The performances were great and the story superb.
Step by step we saw the plan erode from human weakness.
But I don’t see Hank as different, or “rudderless”. I see him as an Everyman who is actually a “ better” person than most. Certainly all the characters in the film, including his wife, who pressures him as well, probably the deciding factor.
I encourage everyone to rent this film.
Billy Bob Thornton is great.
Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right…but Three Do
“There is little guiding him away from the wrong thing, and anyone close to him who could guide him is weak at best — they sometimes encourage him to the wrong thing and are ineffective when attempting to guide him away from wrong.”
I don’t quite understand. It’s a secret, and everyone who knows it stands to gain.
Are you saying that if he went to church regularly and was a religious man, this wouldn’t have happened?
Of course, this is fiction, so I take it as such. Maybe if the character was more religious it would have been harder to believe? I’m not so sure myself.
The theme is anyone is capable of anything. I don’t want to give out spoilers, but if you start at the end, how would you craft a story where someone did that?
There are points in the story where those immediately around him find Hank’s actions going too far and try to encourage him otherwise or protest what he’s done. But of course as they’re all in on this secret and all hope to gain, their influence is therefore weak. Moreover, at least in the book, it’s noted that Hank is by no means close to his brother. Prior to the events of the book they’d only meet once a year at their father’s grave. Lou is just a friend of Jacob’s and one Hank doesn’t care for. Sarah, his wife, is close but she gets involved quickly and also hopes to gain. I found it notable that there was no one else close to Hank and Sarah in any regard. Thus, all weak influences in regards to this matter. They can’t encourage Hank from his path because they are on it as well with no real desire to leave it.
So no, I’m not saying that church would have kept him from this at all. Only that, again at least in the novel, it’s notable that Hank has no good influences throughout this. There’s just the money, his friends, and his own judgment which is accepting his own actions despite how much worse he gets with each passing day.
It’s also interesting that with several of the acts, there are beats where Hank can turn away, where he can step off the path he’s on and stop his personal decline. In each case he decides he must continue. Again, there’s no guide rail — no connection to any community or close friends or anything where he lives — save his own judgment which we see is failing. Would the story be impossible with those things? Not necessarily. But it would most likely be different or involve a larger set of deceptions.
The movie is good as well. Like I said, the movie pulls a lot of punches that the novel brings, and the ending is significantly different if similar. Andrew Klavan likes to talk about his novel True Crime and how it was presented in the movies and how they changed a character from white to black that vastly changed the story Klavan wrote.
In A Simple Plan the movie makes some of Hank’s actions less deliberate and more a reaction. Jacob’s part in the story changed quite a bit, as well as a major scene of Hank’s last atrocities. It’s a good movie, but in the end different than the novel. The Hank at the end of the movie is different than the Hank at the end of the novel.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
–John 3:16
In short, yes.
In long, think of the first passage as not merely personal death which we all face, but as causing death and destruction to that around you. Let’s take a practical example. We probably know a lot of well-meaning people who think Socialism is going to fix all our ills and make the world better, when in fact what we’ll get is more like Venezuela. In the context of the novel, Hank believes if he can soldier through all this, just do one more wrong thing, then they’ll have the money and things will be okay. Instead what he gets is more death and destruction around him.