Raul Faust This movie begins with a possible occurrence of a rape, and I wondered what on earth was happening. However, in the first 10-15 we find out that it's all set up, so the rest of the movie is based in explaining how the three characters have gone into the rape scene. Throughout its explanations, spectator is able to notice that Lissa is someone who does everything to be with Nick, even if that means danger-- and that's really what happens. She puts herself in big danger in order to save her boyfriend's life from a group of pseudo-bandits. It doesn't get clear if Lissa was deeply in love with him, or if she was just crazy to move out. The story, sometimes, felt a little over-the-top, considering that people wouldn't invent all that just to get a paid debt. However, I admit that directing made it feel tense for some very moments, mainly when their commercial is showing on TV, and they have to hide it from Bryce. That was such an intense moment. All in all, "Best Laid Plans" is different from everything you've seen, and there's a big chance that you will enjoy it. I did.

Maziun „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.

moonspinner55 A mild-mannered blue-collar worker stuck in the minimum-wage blues plots to steal a valuable document from the estate where an old college friend is currently housesitting; he gets his girlfriend involved, but will vengeful thugs spoil their plans? Not so much a psychological thriller as a shaggy dog story, a black comedy filled with indecisive, unbelievable losers. Ted Griffin wrote the screenplay, and his dialogue is mind-bogglingly ludicrous (at one point, frustrated Josh Brolin cries, "I just wanted to get laid, instead I got f****d!"). This low-level of wit permeates everything in the scenario, turning nearly all the plot-points into dumb red herrings (the peanuts, the cigarette fire, the neon signs, even the song playing on the car radio!). Reese Witherspoon co-stars, and she's green enough to go along but professional enough not to look very enthused about it. The male leads are filled by Alessandro Nivola, a Jeremy Piven lookalike with a tight little smirk, and Brolin, who continually talks too loud and seems unsure what to project with his body language (he alternately stands stock still or moves about waving his arms). There's always a stupid-clause in pictures like these (with the proviso being, if there wasn't one--there would be no movie). Here it arrives with Nivola giving Brolin a ride even though he doesn't want him along. Brolin's excuse for coming: he's hungry. I was, too, after watching this fatally undernourished modern noir. *1/2 from ****

bob the moo Having met his old buddy Bryce for the first time in years for a drink, Nick gets a call from him in the middle of night asking for help. He goes to Bryce's place where he gets told that Bryce pulled a girl that night, took her home, started messing around and then had sex. However immediately after sex the girl says that she is going to the police to tell them that she was raped. Bryce then takes Nick downstairs where he has the girl tied to a billiard table to prevent her leaving. The two men try to work out what they are going to do, but are things what they seem?Opening with an interesting set-up, this film jumps back in time and immediately undoes itself with a plot that is interesting but not as good as it really should have been. The plot follows the fall of Nick as he needs more money to cover firstly the dreams he has and then the problems he gets into when he tries to get the money by crime. Essentially this film could have been a mix of Tarantino, Mamet and Usual Suspects twists but it falls short of any of those targets but still manages to produce a reasonably good drama with elements of each. The plot isn't as good once it jumps back four months although it still has enough movement to keep things going. The twists are not that great and the plot itself doesn't make as much logical sense as it would like to think that it does. Nor is it as clever as it would like to think – the small town America was well painted but the work on the characters was not as good.Nivola leads the cast well with a nice performance of subtlety even if the material isn't always there for him. Witherspoon walks the film rather easily with a simple role that only really gets interesting towards the end. Of the rest of the cast Brolin is OK, Howard makes a solid appearance and generally everyone else turns in solid performances. It was a film that I felt the characters could have been more important and better developed but they were still good enough for the cast to work with.Overall this is a fairly typical thriller with a twist. It seems to want to be a bit like Tarantino with the dialogue edge of Mamet and the twists of things like Suspects but it doesn't really get close to any of them. Still, it produces an engaging thriller that, although not original, is distracting at least.