But even when we disapprove of a character’s desires or motivations, the vulnerability and veiled pain in Paxton’s face keep us from turning away. He has a knack for keeping us well on his side, for refusing to let us pass judgment on a character too easily. Any actor can forge a character who commits horrible acts of deceit and murder for reasons we can’t comprehend; Paxton has a rare gift for making the unthinkable seem perfectly comprehensible.

You can see that sensibility at work in “Frailty,” Paxton’s directorial debut. You also see a dedication to craftsmanship, and a desire to make every frame count. But you also get a sense of good intentions derailed by a failure to seek and strike just the right tone. “Frailty” starts out, and ends up, as a thriller trying valiantly to show us layers of moral depth. But in between that beginning and ending, Paxton’s vision (as well as that of Brent Hanley, who wrote the script) becomes wavy and indistinct, a blurry muddle of sensationalistic, prurient grisliness masquerading as a meditation on the nature of evil. That’s the risk you run when you make an arty thriller about an ax murderer for the Lord.

Paxton, in what may be the ultimate use of his heartbreakingly earnest, trustworthy face, has cast himself as that murderer. But he’s also a loving widower and all-around good guy. The problem is that he’s awakened one night by a vision from an angel of the Lord, who tells him that he and his two young sons, 12-year-old Fenton (Matt O’Leary) and 8-year-old Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), must embark on a mission to rid the world of the “demons” who walk it.

Of course, those demons are real people, and Fenton quickly catches on to the fact that his father has become unhinged. The more religiously devout and innocent Adam isn’t so quick to get it, and participates somewhat willingly. Most of the story, which takes place in Texas, is told in flashback from the point of view of the grown-up Fenton (Matthew McConaughey), who is at last revealing the family secrets in order to help a detective (Powers Boothe) solve a string of gruesome murders.

Paxton wants us to feel the moral weight of the murders his character commits, which is probably why he shows those killings to us in such detail, as well as focusing on the boys’ terrified faces as they’re forced to watch or, worse, participate. But by the time we’ve seen our third bruised and bloodied victim, bound in duct tape and whimpering in fear, we’ve more than gotten the message. Instead of being drawn into the potential twists and complexities of the story, we’re left dangling by the movie’s relentless unpleasantness.

The killings aren’t presented for our delectation — Paxton is too sensitive a director for that. But how many times do we really need to hear the sharp thud of that ax cutting through bone and flesh? When Paxton (his character is known simply as “Dad”) chastises Adam for merely tossing a garbage bag full of body parts into the secret grave the family has dug, it should be a grim joke when he shows the kids the proper way. (The angel has apparently instructed him that the bag must be emptied by turning it upside down and shaking it from the bottom, so that the parts spill out with a dull tumbling sound.) As it is, it’s merely a queasy-making detail with no significant context.

That’s a shame, because there are enough moments of “Frailty” that show Paxton in complete control, or at least having a clear enough vision of what he’d like to do. When we first meet Paxton, he’s just coming home from his job as a garage mechanic, greeting his two boys, who have already started supper for the family. He jokingly admonishes Adam for spooning too many peas onto his plate; he asks the kids what’s going on at school. Paxton, with his easy smile and soulful eyes, is the picture of comforting normalcy. That’s why it’s so devastating when he bursts into the boys’ room in the middle of the night, switches on the light, and, in a completely sane-sounding, trustworthy voice, outlines his future plans for his family as if he were simply announcing that he was going to rent an Airstream and take them on a cross-country vacation.

Later, Paxton adds another twist when Adam presents him with a list of his own demons scheduled for destruction. Noting that one of the demons is a kid who has teased Adam in school, Paxton explains patiently that what Adam has done is very wrong. “These are real people, Adam.” He goes on to explain the difference between killing demons and killing people, which, as the audience (and Fenton) knows, is no difference at all.

“Frailty” could have used more of that creepy subtlety and fewer of those bloody thumping sounds. But at the very least Paxton shows a desire to do good, thought-provoking work, even if the means to achieve it are just slightly beyond his grasp. But the buzzing undercurrent that fascinates him — the idea that people with good souls can do truly horrible things — is a universal theme that hasn’t yet been exhausted by filmmakers. Paxton’s got the knack of showing all that complexity on his face. He just can’t translate it to a bigger canvas — at least not yet.

At one point in “Twister,” a storm chaser calls a destructive F5 tornado “the finger of God,” an awesome and almighty force spinning with beauty and wrath. In the course of the movie, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton are so relentlessly obsessed with tracking down these divine tornadoes that they destroy their personal lives and their relationships. That might as well be a metaphor for the movie itself: Director Jan DeBont (“Speed”) spends so much time and effort on the astonishing digital effects and their God-like powers that he carelessly ignores plot and character — for him, those details only frame his computer graphics miracles.

Hunt, as Jo, carries the entire cast — except for a few comic bursts from Philip Seymour Hoffman — and she manages to convey awe and humility in front of the same monster that ripped her father from a storm shelter when she was a young girl. Bill Paxton, as her husband, Bill (otherwise known as “The Extreme” because he once marched up to one of them twisters and offered it a swig of Jack Daniel’s), is that same conflicted, jockish scientist character he annoyingly played in “Titanic.” Here he can tell where the twister will blow by sniffing dirt. He has instincts, whereas his former colleague and now enemy, Jonas (Cary Elwes), is a “corporate kiss-butt” leading a competing Secret Service-like entourage of storm chasers outfitted with souped-up black vans and high-tech gadgets. The cat-and-mouse race plays itself out oh-so-predictably, until Jo and Bill’s team finally gets a warning device called “Dorothy” up inside an F5 — and the couple mend their marriage at the same time.

In the DVD director’s commentary DeBont says his film is a tribute to nature. That seems honest enough. His photography of the golden Oklahoma landscape is stunning, his skies are otherworldly and his small towns are affectionately if not nostalgically milk-fed American. But ultimately all of these small towns and farms are set pieces to make his main character, the F5, look good as it plows through rusty reapers, ailing red barns and upright cornstalks, hurling spotted cows and tractor-trailers into the wind.

The other extras on “Twister” are interesting enough, especially “The Making of Twister” and “The Anatomy of the Twister.” (An earlier DVD edition of “Twister” was released without extras.) The live tornado footage helps you appreciate the painstaking detail achieved by special-effects coordinator Stefan Fangmeier. And while the director’s commentary can be illuminating — DeBont points out digital effects and describes the difficulties of filming in Oklahoma — for the most part it’s torturous. Because the story itself is a disappointing distraction from the storms, DeBont finds himself complimenting his choice of automobiles. When he says a more character-driven scene is important to him, it feels like he’s trying to pull a fast one on his audience. In the end, it seems ridiculous to watch anything but live footage of a tornado. Somehow DeBont’s film manages to get in the way of his most beloved force of nature.

Jonathan Mostow’s first movie, “Breakdown,” was a lean, tense thriller, a plausible nightmare. From the start, “U-571″ is bombastic and anonymous. The opening sequence is an example of the ineptitude and waste of Mostow’s approach here. The scene takes place aboard the German sub as it’s being attacked. The camera shakes as the mercilessly amplified Dolby-sound explosions pound our ears. We see water pouring into the sub, men scurrying in a blind panic, even one guy being engulfed in flames. What is the purpose of this sequence? The plot doesn’t require it, since the information it conveys — that a Nazi sub has been crippled after an attack — is covered a few minutes later in the scene where the sailors are briefed on their mission. And it’s not there because we have any stake in the fates of these characters — that is, unless you get torn up watching Nazis get clobbered. The sequence is the crudest form of action-movie tease. Mostow piles on the explosions and the disorienting camera movement, and since this is the beginning of the movie, we know that he’ll have to top it later on.

But topping yourself pyrotechnically isn’t the same thing as telling a story. Mostow is itching to show off what he can do in the close quarters of a submarine. “U-571″ is not recommended for anyone suffering from claustrophobia or a migraine. What with the frenzied editing and the invading water and the sparks and the blurred camera movement corresponding to each big boom, it is nearly impossible to tell where any of the characters are in physical relation to one another. Large-scale chaotic action has to be clear and clean if we’re to get swept up in it. (Think of that incredible sequence in “Three Kings” in which you’re able to follow the course of each bullet in a gunfight.) “U-571″ may be the shoddiest and most incoherent piece of big-budget action moviemaking since “Armageddon.” It’s less about telling a story or providing suspense than about spectacle.

One of the major casualties of Mostow’s unintelligible approach is the actors. For most of “U-571″ you can’t even tell the names of most of the characters, let alone tell them apart. Once a few do become distinct, you wish they’d stayed indistinguishable. Right out of central casting circa 1942, the characters include Keitel’s experienced battle vet, the just-married young sailor, the “why, he’s just a kid” sacrificial lamb, the lone black man and the up-and-comer who has to prove his mettle. This last role is played by the inexplicable Matthew McConaughey. It’s said that Houdini used to perform a trick in which he would thread meat hooks in his mouth. McConaughey sounds as if he were using his cake hole to solve a Rubik’s Cube covered in maple syrup. His words keep slurring and shifting, and his “How’s this for intensity?” stare must be the least expressive in movies.

But then there’s not much to express here. The dialogue in “U-571″ is full of jaw droppers. My favorites include: “I’m a sea dog. I need some salt air”; “Where’s your date? It’s not like you to arrive stag like this”; the ever-popular “She’s old, but she’ll hold”; and “Mr. Tyler, please don’t tell the other guys I’m half-German. They’d hate me.” This last is spoken by one of the youngest of the crew. (Presumably his crewmates think that “Wentz” is a fine old Irish name.) Mostow’s direction is so clumsy that when this sailor finally does speak German (in a moment that saves his buddies from the Nazis), there’s not even a shot of the other sailors registering their surprise.

“U-571″ ends with a dedication to the men who risked their lives to capture the German codes and a credit crawl listing the dates of those missions. Entertainment Weekly reported this week that the film has set off controversy in England because the men who actually broke the Enigma code were British while “U-571″ makes it a case of Yankee heroism. Those slighted Brits may breathe a sigh of relief when they see the movie, and the Americans referred to in the end credits may wish their mission hadn’t been mentioned in this trashy context. Real heroes deserve something more than a monument made out of cheese.

The story, adapted by Scott B. Smith from his novel of the same name, is set in motion when Hank Mitchell (Bill Paxton), his brother Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob’s perennially broke drinking buddy Lou (Brent Briscoe) are tramping through a snow-covered field one winter’s afternoon and stumble upon a crashed small-engine airplane. Inside is the dead pilot and $4.4 million in cash. Hank’s immediate impulse is to tell the cops. Lou, who’s not about to let this treasure slip through his fingers, convinces Hank that they’ve probably found drug money and that they’d be foolish to give it up. Hank reluctantly agrees, but on his terms. He tells Lou and Jacob he’ll hold the money until the spring. If nobody claims it by then, the three of them will split it up and leave town. Hank is taking no chances. Any deviation from the plan, he warns the others, and he burns the cash. It’s New Year’s Eve and they hope for a new beginning. But the film’s title, of course, is intended ironically.

The story of a group of people who try to keep a secret that can’t stay hidden is a classic pulp setup. Raimi doesn’t treat it like pulp, though. He’s long been one of the most cartoonish of filmmakers, and I’ve enjoyed his bughouse energy in movies like “Evil Dead 2″ and his western pastiche “The Quick and the Dead.” But nothing in his previous work prepares you for the sobriety and control — and, finally, the emotional devastation — he brings to Smith’s script.

The material had passed to several directors before Raimi was hired on, and clearly he sees it as his chance to prove himself a serious filmmaker. Working with cinematographer Alar Kivilo, Raimi makes the bleak winter landscapes a metaphor for his characters’ states of mind. His work is, at times, too somber, too deliberate: The buzzards that loom in the opening credits are too obvious a symbol of what will follow. And there’s no getting around the fact that the movie is something of a downer. But it deserves the gravity Raimi accords it.

Usually, when pop entertainers decide to get serious, they feel that they have to forsake the energy and cunning that often made their work so enjoyable to begin with. Watching “A Simple Plan,” I got the feeling that Raimi was drawing on everything he’d learned about how to tell a story, how to involve an audience. He never forgets he’s making an entertainment (albeit a grim one), yet he’s proceeding from the conviction that there has to be something more to pop movies than crashes and explosions, killings and death dismissed with snappy catch phrases, computer effects and flashy editing.

Raimi seems to have reached the conclusion Stephen King does at the end of his latest book, “Bag of Bones,” when his novelist-hero writes, “I believe that even make-believe murder should be taken seriously.” Raimi takes the violence in “A Simple Plan” very seriously. I don’t want to oversell the movie or imply it’s in a class that it isn’t. But maybe the best way to impart an idea of its tone is by saying that Raimi treads the fine line of “The Wages of Fear” or the scene in “The Godfather” when Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone kills for the first time (the tensest scene in any movie ever). He manages to keep the audience in suspense without ever exploiting the attendant violence for cheap thrills. By the last half-hour of the film, with its almost unbearably suspenseful climax, you’re so keyed up that you can’t tell whether Hank is exhibiting paranoia or common sense. When violence erupts, it’s not so much a release as a realization of your worst fears. There’s never a moment here when the violence doesn’t carry weight.

When Hank Mitchell commits violence for the first time, Raimi keeps his camera squarely on Paxton’s face. What we see there is more deeply horrifying than any depiction of mayhem: a man doing something that, until that moment, he would have sworn he was incapable of doing. The scene registers because there’s no actor alive who’s better than Paxton at playing ordinary men without making them patronizingly simple or dull. Paxton (who suggests what Gary Cooper might have been if his early sex appeal hadn’t been knocked out of him) is immediately likable and trustworthy in the way that Joel McCrea was. As Hank, he’s playing the good American who believes that hard work and honesty are what will reward him and his pregnant wife, Sarah (Bridget Fonda). Paxton puts living flesh on those iconic bones. He doesn’t make Hank’s dedication to honesty naive. That dedication is Hank’s compass; and the most pitiable and terrifying thing about Paxton’s performance is, after that compass is smashed, watching Hank find his footing in the new territory he enters.

Fonda’s Sarah prods Hank in that direction. Our first glimpse of her, fresh from the bath with her robe open to reveal her pregnant belly, is meant to radiate a simple purity. That’s the image Raimi and Fonda want to be in our minds when Sarah is caught up in the same hunger that descends on the men. With her sparkling eyes and upturned, slightly cleft nose, Fonda is often a ray of sunshine on-screen. She uses that sunny openness to startlingly different effect here, and I’m not sure that audiences will be prepared to accept just how far she goes. The movie’s most powerful image of corruption is the sight of Fonda’s fresh young face articulating the next steps in the scheme. She’s nothing as simplistic (or misogynist) as the conniving femme fatale. Raimi complicates things by giving Sarah the film’s most impassioned speech, a relentlessly detailed plea to Hank to consider what their lives will be without the money. This isn’t one of the down-and-outers of film noir dreaming of the big score that will land them on Easy Street. It’s an average, normal human being articulating limits that, in one way or another, describe the lives of many of us. What’s so unsettling in the scene is how reasonable her expectations are, and how reasonable those expectations make her proposed solutions sound.

Reportedly, Billy Bob Thornton almost didn’t get cast as Jacob. The director who was supposed to make “A Simple Plan” before Raimi, John Boorman, supposedly had to fight for the then-unknown Thornton. (After “Sling Blade,” when the studio was happy to cast Thornton, Boorman was no longer available to make the film.) He was right to insist, though. It takes some getting used to Thornton, in his long stringy hair and nerd glasses. And it’s a role that could easily be a bummer, the saintly simpleton. But Jacob has a painful awareness of his limitations, and a rock-solid, tragic knowledge of who he is. It’s not just an affectation when all he can imagine doing with his share of the money is getting himself a new truck. (It’s like the wonderful, heartbreaking moment in “Dog Day Afternoon” when Al Pacino’s Sonny Wortzik tells his bank-robbing partner, Sal (John Cazale), that they have to leave the country and asks him where he’s always wanted to go, and Cazale answers, “Wyoming.”) Thornton makes Jacob stand for something like what he represents to Hank and Sarah — a puzzlement, a burden and a part of their lives that they don’t think about much simply because they always expect him to be there. It’s a performance that, by the end of the movie, has grown in stature.

Even if “A Simple Plan” weren’t as solidly and intelligently made, even if it weren’t as finely acted, its willingness to let us feel for its characters would be enough to distinguish it from lots of other movies around right now. The common meaning of recent movies as disparate as “Elizabeth” or the repugnant “Very Bad Things” (in which being shocked means admitting you’re not hip enough to laugh at the mounting tally of disfigurements and killings) seems to be the irredeemable rottenness of human beings. In this atmosphere, the piddling vision of Todd Solondz’s “Happiness,” a movie in which the characters are examined as if they were captured insects suffocating in a jar, is acclaimed as tough-mindedly compassionate. Raimi has chosen to move beyond shallow, cartoon mayhem at a time when some of the most acclaimed films are embracing it, and when audiences seem eager for that kind of shallowness. By treating the violence in “A Simple Plan” as a horrifically plausible betrayal of his characters’ humanity, rather than as a blasi confirmation of what scum they are, Raimi has acted with true decency. In some ways, “A Simple Plan” is the most fitting holiday movie around.