THE NEXT 3 DAYS (2010)

The Next 3 Days (2010)

Genre: Drama, Thriller, Romance

Director: Paul Haggis

Writers: Paul Haggis, Fred Cavayé

Stars:Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson 

My Score 3/5

Russell Crowe is a promising actor. Coming from a great history like Gladiator and Master & Commander he is not a person to mess around with. But I have my doubts if his potential is completely used in ‘The Next 3 Days’.

The story goes like this. Russell portrays a community college teacher John Brennan. Having a perfect loving life with his wife and son it comes to a sudden halt when his wife Lara (played by Elizabeth Banks) is convicted for murder. With hard evidence to back the case she ends up in jail and John left helpless and heartbroken with his kid. Believing that his wife is not guilty he tries his level best to go through proper legal channels in order to get her free. After years trying every option and hitting a dead end he decides that it’s time to play dirty. With that the calm dramatic movie suddenly starts to smell like Prison Break. 

‘The Next 3 Days’ is a long movie. It runs for good 15 mts more than two hours. But to my amusement it was not boring. There is lot of details involved and little little bits and pieces gathered from here and there which ultimately pulls of the master plot. Even though it’s slow the plot manages to keep the attention centered well while providing intelligent twists time to time. So the story is quite unpredictable and its one reason why it’s good. The other reason is that it concentrates on family and drama than being a jail break movie as a whole. Most of the scenes take place outside the prison walls and surrounding John so there is a vast number of opportunities and space to move about. 

However the script is not perfect. For me there are too many coincidences. You might call it luck but too much luck is not that good in a movie. After you watch the whole thing if a single one of those lucky moments were missing the movie should have ended quite early than expected. So depending on luck is not very promising when someone is working his brains out of a plan like this one. 

There is good performance from the leading actors but nothing worthwhile mentioning. Script doesn’t offer space for good memorable quotes or maybe little weak at following timelines. 

 Overall ‘The Next 3 Days’ is a good view. But it will not go down in the history as one of best movies of Russell or Elizabeth nor will it be one of the best movies in your movie collection. You will not watch it twice but pretty much will enjoy it in one viewing. 

Trailer