For a film with a smug, to the point title, this little psychological thriller doesn’t have the best laid plot. Not that the exercise is all for naught, because it does intrigue. Scruffy, hunky Nick (Allesandro Nivola) is strapped to small town America after his father passes on and leaves him with a financial headache. For some fast cash, Nick pairs up with a few dubious characters down at the recycling plant to pull off a no-brainer job. Things go awry and Nick winds up large into the town’s relentless crime boss. Then there’s Nick’s old college buddy Bryce (Josh Brolin) who’s a new arrival in town and house sitting a millionaire’s estate. The two reconnect over drinks, but it’s Bryce who scores the gorgeous nymphet (Reese Witherspoon) hovering around the bar. Things only get worse for Nick when a phone call stirs him later that night. The nymphet has accused Bryce of rape and to add fire to the allegation, she might not even be legal. Bryce pins the crisis on Nick and asks him to talk to the nymphet, now bound and gagged in the basement.
Can all this bad s**t happen to one guy all at once? Not plausibly and that’s the film’s hook, everything is not what it appears to be. There are “plans” within “plans” which come to the surface as the cast of players jockey to achieve their well guarded motives. The picture is handsomely shot and the younger Brolin earns his mettle as the annoyingly pompous yuppie, but when the plot tips its hand, the grandiloquent mind-f**k miss fires.
