For much of the late '70s and '80s, John Landis was one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, directing such blockbusters as The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Animal House, and Coming To America. The '90s were less kind, his career momentum slowed to a halt by the likes of The Stupids, Innocent Blood, and Blues Brothers 2000. Dying To Get Rich… Susan's Plan marks a new low for Landis, not only because it's his first direct-to-video film, but also because its distributor is Full Moon, the schlockmeisters behind the Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, and Dollman series. The writer-director's name gives Susan's Plan cachet, but just about everything else about it—from its washed-out look to its second-rate cast to its busy and inconsequential plot—screams direct-to-video. A misanthropic comedy, Plan revolves around a group of bumbling conspirators (including Nastassja Kinski, Billy Zane, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Schneider, and Dan Aykroyd) who team up in a poorly conceived plan to kill Kinski's ex to collect his life-insurance policy. On a purely logical level, Susan's Plan is implausible, starting with the fact that each of the conspirators' take is only $100,000, an amount the uniformly unlikable characters believe they'll be able to live off for the rest of their lives; Kinski's luxurious home alone looks like it cost at least half a million. Susan's Plan is a dud anyway, filled with female characters who are either murderous shrews or ditzy sexpots (or both) and male characters who barely manage to be one-dimensional. Landis' tactic of withholding exposition from early scenes would be a lot more effective if it didn't mean that clunky patches of exposition arrive 40 minutes in rather than within the first 10. He's clearly a member of the if-it's-funny-once-it'll-be-even-funnier-when-repeated school of comedy, leading to gags that aren't funny once and certainly don't get any funnier the sixth time around. (A bit involving characters dreaming about killing other characters is a particularly egregious example.) To Landis' credit, Susan's Plan is marginally more engaging than most direct-to-video films (at least until it fizzles out in its last half-hour), but it still fits into that dingy, low-expectation world way too snugly to suggest that its creator belongs anywhere else.