The Next Three Days

One of the surprises of The Next Three Days (an American remake of the French film Anything For Her) is that it's a prison break movie where the lead character is an everyman who doesn't really know what he's doing. Usually in these type of movies, we get characters who are cool, calm, and can dream up and perform complex plans in their sleep. In this movie, we get a guy who has the right plan, but doesn't always know how to carry them out. He makes mistakes, and although he stays cool, he comes very close to getting caught.

That's why it's a shame that the lead character has to be played by someone like Russell Crowe. It's not that he's bad in the role, he just never quite comes across as an everyman pushed to his limits. He seems like someone who was pretending to be an everyman at the beginning, and as soon as the opportunity comes, he reveals his true self. It's the wrong choice for the character he plays, John Brennan. John is a bookish college professor. He's meek, he's a devoted family man to his wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) and young son Luke (Ty Simpkins), and he's supposed to come across as the kind of guy who's never done anything risky or dangerous in his life. Crowe looks a little too rugged to be playing such a character. I don't really have anything bad to say about his performance, he just doesn't fit who he's playing.

The movie follows what drove John from being an average law-abiding father and husband, to someone who would be willing to risk everything on a dangerous gamble. That moment occurs early on, when the Brennan family is having breakfast, only to have the police suddenly rush in, and arrest Lara for murder of her boss at work. The next time we see her, it's a couple years later. The trial is over, Lara's been convicted, and is facing a long sentence. But John knows his wife is innocent, and when he runs out of appeals, he turns to the advice of someone who has broken out of many prisons in the past (Liam Neeson) as to how to stage the perfect prison break, and escape the country with his family to a place that does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. government.

We witness the events of the murder through a flashback, and it's an exercise in plot convenience. First, we see how Lara and her boss had a very public and heated argument that a lot of their co-workers happened to see. Later that night, as the boss walked to her vehicle, she was attacked by a mugger, who beat her to death with a fire extinguisher, then took her money. As the mugger fled the parking garage, she happened to bump into Lara, who was entering, allowing the victim's blood to get on Lara's clothes without her knowing. Not only that, when Lara gets to her vehicle, she sees the murder weapon lying in front of her vehicle (but not the body), so she picks it up and moves it, allowing her prints to get on the weapon. Writer-director Paul Haggis has always been a sucker for coincidental plotting (see his screenplay for Crash), but as I was watching the events of that fateful night unfold, I started to ask myself if maybe he had taken things too far.

No matter, though. The Next Three Days works for the most part, because a majority of the film is devoted to John, and his amateur attempts at pulling off such a risky prison break. Much of the tension is created by his own slip ups, such as when he tries to get some fake IDs from some shady people in a bad area (which ends up very bad for him), or when he has a mishap trying out a custom made key that winds up almost blowing his cover. This element of the character adds some much needed tension, as the film is unusually low key for a thriller, before it hits the final 30 minute mark, and turns into a lengthy and well-executed race against time. His uneasiness with what he's doing also helps make the character easier to identify with. That's why Crowe is wrong for the role. Even when he makes mistakes, he slides into the role of the cunning criminal too easily.

For all it's problems, I'm recommending the film. It's entertaining, it kept me intrigued, and aside from Crowe, the rest of the performances fit. Banks is very effective and sympathetic here, as is Olivia Wilde (TV's House) as a woman who befriends John, but never quite seems sure of what to make of him. This is a minor film, but an interesting one. I would have liked if the movie had dug a little bit deeper into its own questions. John seems to come to the conclusion that his only chance for justice is to break his wife out of prison but, aside from a few scenes when he hesitates, we never really get a sense that he's questioning his own actions. He often seems a little too willing to bend the laws to fit his own purpose, and doesn't deal enough with the internal struggle such a situation would bring.

There's a moment in the film where a cop warns John to think about how his son would feel if both of his parents were in prison. This is a good example of what I just said, as the film never really slows down and examines this statement. This is an entertaining little film, but if it cared enough to actually think about the questions it raises within the main character, it could have been so much more.

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