The Next Three Days
Review
by Anthony Morris
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The Next Three Days
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French film Pour Elle (Anything For Her) is built around an idea so good Hollywood was bound to remake it.
When
an average guy's wife is arrested, convicted, and locked up for life on
a murder charge, he's forced to transform himself into a jail-breaking
badass to bust her out. It might be a great idea for a
thriller but it's a surprising choice for director Paul Haggis, who's
made a name for himself in recent years for super-serious and
heavy-handed looks at American society like Crash and In The Valley of Elah.
Here
though he's made a straight ahead, no fuss crime thriller that keeps
his preachy, obvious style of story-telling to a minimum (for the most
part at least). The Next Three Days does
lose a certain amount of suspense in having Russell Crowe playing the
husband - for all his "average guy" acting, he's still able to become a
gun-toting thug with surprising ease (and the help of some
instructional YouTube clips on how to commit crimes).
That said,
this was never going to be a film that focused on the question of
whether our hero was going to rise to the occasion.
Instead,
the questions it raises lie in another direction: is becoming a
murdering, thieving, lying bastard worth it to set your wife (Elizabeth
Banks) free? It never gets in the way of the action and
there is plenty of action here whether you're after shoot-outs, high
speed getaways, beatings or outwitting the law, but it's there just
enough to make it feel like there's an actual reason why this
satisfying but otherwise fairly generic thriller exists. Unfortunately, as far as The Next Three Days'
other big question - did she do it? - Haggis is less confident of the
audience's ability to live with uncertainty, and a clumsy, pointless
reveal (that no-one in the film experiences, making it nothing more
than a way to answer a question that didn't need answering) ruins the
climax. It's a massive misstep, and it all but undoes the good work that came before. 2.5 out
of 5
The Next Three Days
Australian release: 3rd February,
2011
Official
Site: The Next Three Days
Cast: Russell Crowe, Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks, Jonathan
Tucker
Director: Paul Haggis
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