The Next Three Days (2010) * *

 

Directed by:  Paul Haggis

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Ty Simpkins

Things go awry fast for John and Lara Brennan.   One night they are having dinner with friends and all is well, although Lara seems a bit hostile, and the next morning the police bang down the door during breakfast and arrest Lara for murder.   John absolutely refuses to believe she is guilty, even though the evidence against her is damning.   Fast forward to three years later, Lara is still in prison after her latest appeal is rejected.   She is resigned to spending the rest of her days in prison, but not if John can help it.

The Next Three Days is about John's plan to bust Lara out of prison and be a family unit again with their six-year-old son Luke (Simpkins), who resents his mother being away.   John (Crowe) is a local college professor who isn't at home trekking around for fake ID's and guns, but he'll need those and lots of money if he wants to pull this off.    A former convict who escaped from prison seven times and wrote a book about it (Neeson) gives John advice about how to plot an escape.   Lara (Banks) is so hardened and cynical now she all but begs John to leave her be and move on with his life.   Another woman (Wilde) appears on the scene, and we think it will lead to a romantic subplot for John, but no...he is determined to spring his wife.   A lecture he holds about Don Quixote reveals his mindset.

A great deal of The Next Three Days is devoted to John's plotting.   He takes up an entire wall in his living room with photos, articles, checklists, and a map of the Pittsburgh area.   He's a smart cookie, but does he have the stones to follow this potentially deadly heist to the end?    Thankfully, he doesn't have many visitors to question why he has all of the junk on his wall.   Elizabeth Banks, normally a solid comic actress, gives us a portrait of a woman who may be innocent, but also has the temperament to possibly commit murder.   The time in prison changes Lara, and Banks is up to the task of portraying her varying states of mind.

Crowe plays a steady Eddie who, like many characters like John, figures out a way to fire guns and evade police without any previous experience doing so.   It's as if John watched a lot of movies and learned the behavior.    It's hard to fault the performances here, just the movie they are in service of.  The Next Three Days is over two hours long and never finds its rhythm.   It stops and starts, trading off some poignant scenes involving John's father George (Dennehy), who suspects something is going on with his son with others which make you scratch your head.   With the Pittsburgh police bearing down on them, do Lara and John really have time to pull over after a near accident and sit beside the car to ponder things?   Why does Lara always seem like she's about to say something and then holds back?  Are we ever truly convinced that John loves Lara enough to do this?   Or that Lara loves John enough to let him risk his own life for her?

We have over two hours to find out the answers to these questions and we never discover them.   There are parts of a solid thriller at work in The Next Three Days, but it's too long, too dragged out, never gathers serious momentum, and in the end simply silly.