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Plan B (2002) DVD Review
Plan B (2002) DVD Credits:
Plan B (2002) Directed by:
Greg Yaitanes
Plan B (2002) Written by:
Lisa Lutz
Plan B (2002) Cast:
Diane Keaton, Paul Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Balaban
Plan B (2002) Released by:
Half Moon Entertainment
Region:
1
Plan B (2002) DVD Release Date:
1st May 2006
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Plan B (2002) Synopsis:

A bookkeeper who thinks she killed three mobsters is subsequently promoted by her boss to be a hitman.

Plan B (2002) DVD Review:

In the special features for The Family Stone Diane Keaton talks about how nice it is to play a role where she can really let go and act silly. She must have enjoyed the feeling enough to make Plan B, a crime caper slapstick in which an ordinary middle-aged woman gets sucked into working for the mafia as a hit-woman. It feels like The Sopranos meets a classic Woody Allen film without the usual neurosis. Comedy gangster films are nothing new, and bad ones are even more regular, but who would have ever imagined Diane Keaton in such a role? It is more surprising that she is in such an average film than the fact that the film is not great.
Diane Keaton plays Fran, a nervous bookkeeper whose husband gathered quite a gambling debt before he died. Upon his death Fran is forced to work for mob boss Joe Maloni (Paul Sorvino) to pay off the debt. When Fran gets caught up in a deal gone wrong and she saves Maloni’s life, he promotes her to become an assassin, with the strange belief that she is a cold-blooded killer. The only problem is that Fran doesn’t have it in her to actually kill anyone, and she takes each hit to Florida to stay with her brother (Bob Balaban) instead. As a small group of gangsters begins to live together in Florida, Maloni suspects that she may be up to something and he comes to figure it out. High jinks mix with faux suspense as the film comes to an end in as predictable a way as possible.
Keaton seems to be having fun, but she mostly seems to be channeling a style of acting that she must have learned from Woody Allen and Robert Altman films. She has a bumbling demeanor about her speech that makes it sound unprepared or even unscripted at times. Sorvino is wasted, on the other hand. Any large Italian character actor could have played the generic role that he is given as Maloni. The other gangsters in the film are given much more to work with, even if it is required that they act sillier than Robert DeNiro in Analyze This.
The DVD has some additional scenes, most of which are better left out, and a screen test. There is also a commentary track by director Greg Yaitanes. Truthfully, I am surprised by the cast of the film, because it is the only thing that is worthwhile here.

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Plan B (2002) DVD review written by: Ryan Izay

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