The Next Three Days (***)
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Starring: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Lennie James,Liam Neeson,
Jason Beghe, Aisha Hinds, Ty Simpkins, Olivia Wilde, Brian Dennehy, Kevin
Corrigan
Seen: January 23rd 2011
*** Out of ****
The Next Three Days is a strange movie to experience, as the story is
good, but it is just a tad too familiar. A thousand other similar movies have
been made in the past, but it rarely happens that a movie can feel so
lacklustre and so really good and entertaining at the same time. If it weren’t
for Russel Crowe and Paul Haggis’ (and to a slightly lesser extent Elizabeth
Banks) involvement, this movie would have been straight to DVD fare. Crowe and
Haggis are such high profile features in the entertainment industry however,
that this movie is elevated to almost blockbuster status.
I’m not in any way saying that The Next Three Days is bad, quite the
opposite in fact; it is a tight and intricate thriller that weaves together
some interesting perspectives. The tag-line, “What if you had 72 hours to save
everything you live for?” promises quite a bit, and the stakes are indeed high.
Very normal guy and college professor John Brennan (Crowe) and his wife and son
are a happy little family, living the American Dream. John’s wife Lara (Banks)
has a problem with her boss, but nothing really out of the ordinary. One morning
as the family ready for their day the police burst through their front door and
arrest Lara, and, having found sufficient evidence, Lara is convicted for the murder
of her boss, and sentenced to a very long prison sentence. John and Lara
exhaust every avenue to appeal the incorrect ruling, and when they run out of
ideas, John approaches Damon Pennington (Neeson), who has escaped from prison
seven times, for advice on a prison break of his own.
The movie doesn’t rush headlong into the escape, but instead chooses
to focus on the planning. John is followed as he cases the prison, as he tries
to obtain the necessary passports and other documentation and hardware, and as
he even goes to certain extreme measures to obtain enough cash for the getaway
to be successful. Things have a way of not entirely working out though, and the
movie makes the viewer wonder whether the getaway will be successful right up
to the very end, having you mostly rooting for John and Lara, but even at times
(moments only) doubting whether you really want them to make it.
Russell Crowe has the uncanny ability to disappear into characters,
and as John Brennan we believe that he is a fallible man trying his best, and
coming up with a rather sharp plan which he implements with varying and
increasingly tense levels of success. Elizabeth Banks did not pick the movie to
be glamorous, and she makes the viewer believe that this woman is having a hard
time. The tension builds slowly and surely, and even though it doesn’t reach
unbearable levels, it makes for a pleasant guessing game right up to the end,
where the last hurdle is just a little too perfect for sense.
The Next Three Days demands a little suspension of disbelief, but it
is an entertaining and involving story about a man trying to get his family back
together again, at any cost, and for that I can recommend it.
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