It's hard to root for a guy who is stuck in the dead center of his own despair.
If you decide
to see The Next Three Days, be warned that the title is a gentle hint
that three days long is just what this movie feels like. It opens with a bang
and then descends into a prolonged lethargy that erupts in a final period of
blazing action. I must add that even in the closing chaos, Russell Crowe manages
to confine things to a slow crawl. And believe me, the movie is his to make or
break since he's on screen for most of the two hour plus running time.
As Crowe
moves through a very weak script in one flat note, he never invites us in. He
plays John, a husband who adores his wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) and son Luke.
Their perfect life is destroyed in an instant when police roar into their house
to arrest Lara for murder. Circumstantial evidence brings her a twenty year
prison sentence. She had passed by the murder scene in a parking garage; her
coat bore a spot of the victim's blood; her fingerprints were on the weapon.
Ninety interminable minutes pass before this bad news is explained.
During the
next three years, John dedicates himself to proving his wife's innocence. When
the final legal appeal is denied, he knows the only solution is a jail break.
It's here that both the script and Mr. Crowe let us down. Though determined,
John never develops a plan that is either credible or cohesive. Exploring one
idea here, another there, he learns from the internet how to make a "bump key"
that will open any lock, but never gives us the feeling that he might succeed in
springing poor Lara. This guy doesn't seem up to the job. He is, after all, a
school teacher, not a crook.
It's hard to
root for a guy who stays stuck in the dead center of his own despair. As much as
we try to push it away, a wave of disapproval washes over us: "Aw, come on,
Russell; you can do better than that." For most of this long period, he simply
broods. This is all preparation for a jailbreak that most probably will fail.
The planner is neither precise nor clever. Liam Neeson, a baseball cap hiding
his celebrity, is terrific as a break-in mentor to John as he warns him "You
want this too much; you'll screw it up."
Elizabeth
Banks is wonderful as an angry woman in the first strong scene where she
inadvertently establishes a motive for the upcoming murder. She manages to
convey the only real emotion in the script whenever we see her, but once she's
in jail, Crowe turns the picture to dull color. Am I asking for The Gladiator?
Not really; I like John, the community college teacher with conscience (a Prius).
But given the violence director Paul Haggis pours on his characters, we all
could have used just a touch of color from Bonnie and Clyde.
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