A Simple Plan recap

Hank Mitchell, his troubled brother Jacob, and Jacob's friend Lou find a crashed plane containing a dead pilot and millions of dollars. They agree that Hank will hide the cash until they know no one is looking for it. Secrecy quickly demands violence: an accidental witness dies, Lou tries to force an early division, and Hank kills Lou and Lou's wife while staging the scene to hide the dispute. A supposed FBI agent later leads Hank, Jacob, and the sheriff back to the aircraft, where the agent proves to be a criminal connected to the money. Hank kills him after he murders the sheriff. Jacob asks Hank to kill him rather than face what they have done, and Hank complies. Genuine agents finally explain that the cash was recorded kidnapping ransom, making it impossible to use. Hank burns it and resumes ordinary life with Sarah, having gained nothing and lost his brother and moral security.

Hank Mitchell joins his older brother Jacob and Jacob's friend Lou on a winter outing near their Ohio town. Chasing Jacob's dog into a nature preserve, they discover a small plane hidden under snow. The pilot is dead, and a bag inside holds more than four million dollars. Hank wants to report the discovery, but Jacob and Lou argue that the money can transform their lives. They settle on what appears to be a cautious plan: Hank will keep the cash untouched until the plane is found and the danger of an investigation has passed. If no one comes for it, they will divide it. Hank immediately breaks their promise of secrecy by telling his pregnant wife Sarah, who helps him think through the risks and possibilities.

Hank tries to make the scheme safer by returning part of the money to the plane so that a later discovery will not immediately suggest theft. During another trip near the crash, Hank and Jacob encounter Dwight Pederson, an elderly local man whose observations could connect them to the site. A frightened effort to stop him from talking becomes fatal. The brothers arrange the death to look accidental and escape immediate suspicion. The decision to keep found money has now made them responsible for concealing a killing. Jacob is shaken, while Hank responds by planning more carefully and persuading himself that one additional lie can contain the damage.

Lou becomes impatient and suspicious. He wants access to his share and fears that Hank, who controls the bag, intends to cheat him. Hank and Sarah devise a way to undermine him: Hank and Jacob pressure Lou into making a recorded false confession to Dwight's death, hoping the tape will guarantee his silence. The attempt instead exposes how completely trust has collapsed. In a confrontation at Lou and Nancy's home, threats turn into gunfire. Hank kills both Lou and Nancy, then constructs a murder-suicide account that hides his own presence and uses the recorded confession to reinforce the story. The plan survives official attention, but only because Hank has deliberately killed and manipulated evidence.

Hank and Sarah welcome their daughter Amanda while trying to preserve the appearance of ordinary family life. Jacob is increasingly unable to carry the emotional burden of the deaths, and his dependence on Hank deepens. Sheriff Carl Jenkins continues following information about a missing aircraft. A man introduced as FBI agent Neil Baxter arrives with details suggesting that the crash has finally drawn federal interest. Baxter wants Hank and Jacob to guide him and the sheriff to the plane. Hank cannot refuse without exposing his knowledge, so the brothers prepare to return to the place where the scheme began, uncertain how much Baxter knows about the money or their actions.

At the crash site, Baxter reveals that he is not an FBI agent and is connected to the stolen money. He kills Sheriff Jenkins, and Hank shoots Baxter. Hank once again stages the evidence, this time creating a plausible account in which the sheriff confronted the criminal responsible for the plane. Jacob sees no future in which he can live with the killings or withstand investigation. He asks Hank to kill him and make the death appear self-inflicted. Hank shoots his brother and leaves the scene arranged as another manageable story. Later, genuine federal agents explain that the money came from a kidnapping and that its serial numbers were recorded. Spending it would expose Hank and Sarah. Hank burns the fortune they committed the crimes to possess. He remains free and returns to his job and family, but the plan has yielded no wealth, only a sequence of deaths he must remember and conceal.

At the crashed plane, Baxter reveals himself as a criminal rather than an FBI agent and kills Sheriff Jenkins. Hank shoots Baxter and arranges the scene to support a story in which the sheriff died confronting the man responsible for the crash. Jacob, broken by the deaths and convinced that suspicion will eventually settle on him, asks Hank to kill him. Hank does so and stages his brother's death as a suicide. He and Sarah are then told by genuine federal agents that the money was ransom from a kidnapping and that every bill's serial number is known. The fortune cannot be safely spent. Hank burns the remaining cash. He avoids prosecution and returns to his job and family, but the imagined better life never arrives. His brother and the others are dead, and he must continue an outwardly ordinary existence knowing that his choices caused the entire chain of violence.