Written for www.suite101.com
Everyone has bad days. You might miss the train to work, get splashed by a passing car, and then finally return home to find your oven broken and the central heating down. While you wallow in self-pity on the sofa, try watching The Next Three Days and you’ll realize things could be worse. You could in fact be locked in prison serving life for a crime you didn’t commit with no chance of a successful appeal to prove your innocence. How's that for perspective?
Crash director Paul Haggis’ latest film, The Next Three Days, centres around such a dilemma. Russell Crowe plays John Brennan, a man who must deal with the fact that his wife, Lara Brennan, (Elizabeth Banks) has abruptly been imprisoned for murdering her boss. Not even considering the fact that she could be guilty, he fights her corner, and when any chance of an appeal fails, he takes drastic action against the officials who have snatched his life away and ruined his son’s childhood. He is going to break her free from Pittsburgh prison - one of the biggest urban prisons in America.
First things first, this is a remake of a French film, Anything For Her. While we could focus upon this fact, gripe and moan about the state of Hollywood and its evolution into a remaking and rebooting machine, instead, let’s not. Let’s simply judge this film on its own credentials
The initial opening scenes of the film are well crafted character introduction pieces. The Brennan family is established nicely with a kitchen scene involving amusing bickering and loving comments thrown in for good measure. However, as soon as we settle in with the Brennans, everything is violently torn apart. A patch of blood is discovered on Lara Brennan's coat and the situation suddenly escalates from a household moment of washing an unknown stain off a coat into a brutal police intervention.
Paul Haggis then begins to craft a wonderfully moving drama, Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks' finest moment in the film is the realization that the chance of an appeal has failed. Neither speaks a word but both flood with emotion, breaking down on either side of a prison partition glass at the prospect of her life sentence being just this; Life.
Once the realization that she will not be getting out of prison anytime soon hits, Brennan undertakes the ridiculous task of breaking her free. The tale then evolves from the moving family drama to that of the fable of David vs Goliath; the everyday man VS the police system. It is here where the credibility starts to fade and Brennan evolves into a gun toting criminal, breaking into medical vans, participating in drug den shoot outs and dumping bodies at bus stops.
It begins to undo the work of the first half of the film which established a strong connection between the audience and the character of Brennan. While he does not become a dislikeable man, we as an audience are detached from him abruptly as the film changes from a drama to an action thriller.
When the prison break announces itself and the action truly takes over, The Next Three Days, does become highly enjoyable, but for completely different reasons than the touching first half. The break out and subsequent chase scene to make the border in time is heart pounding stuff. There are many hiccups along the way that cast doubt over the attempt. It is exciting stuff, though it does drag itself out for quite some time.
While in essence, The Next Three Days, is an action thriller, it is at its best focusing upon the quiet moments, the emotional depiction of a family torn apart by a sequence of events caused by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the bumpy transition from drama to thriller, the film is still enjoyable, laced with emotional moments of intensity, adrenaline inducing chases and some excellent character moments.
The Next Three Days is a perfect film for that Friday night as you sit there on your sofa with your pot noodle at hand. Just think, at least you aren't in prison.
3/5http://www.suite101.com/content/the-next-three-days-review-a333338
