Metacritic Film

Best Laid Plans

Starring Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon, and Josh Brolin

MPAA RATING: R for language and sexuality

20th Century Fox
Drama
92 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters September 10, 1999

Nick (Nivola) is caught in a dead end job in a dead end town. About the only thing going well for him is Lissa (Witherspoon), his new girlfriend. A chance to make some easy cash, and a way out of town only leads to more trouble as they become caught in a web of sex, thefts, gangsters, kidnappings and murder. (20th Century Fox)

WRITTEN BY
Ted Griffin

DIRECTED BY
Mike Barker

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

40 / 100

Critic Reviews

80 Film.com
A careful, intelligent, and seamless design that makes room for a couple of unexpected twists.
75 Mr. Showbiz
Doesn't come close to the pulp beauty and complexity of classic noir.
75 USA Today
Has the refined taste to crib from classics like "Double Indemnity."
60 TV Guide
Director Mike Barker has delivered a film that proves there's life left in the old genre yet, and does so with style, intelligence and surprisingly little violence.
60 Los Angeles Times
A fine mood piece with lots of atmosphere and boasts terrific performances from its stars.
50 Chicago Tribune
The plot thickens and thickens and thickens until it chokes on a tangled mess of double-crosses.
50 The New York Times
Style overwhelms substance by default.
50 LA Weekly Steven Mikulan
Manages to be a fun twist-within-a-twist movie.
40 Rolling Stone
Director Mike Barber springs a twist ending that makes you sit up and stifle those yawns.
38 New York Daily News
Sadly, a film about betrayal is ultimately betrayed by the film maker's own lack of conviction.
38 New York Post
A cast almost talented enough to distract you from Ted Griffin's gimmicky screenplay.
25 Chicago Sun-Times
So concerned with being a film that it forgets to be a movie.
20 Village Voice
A creakily mechanical B-noir.
0 Entertainment Weekly
An inept low-budget thriller.

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