The Next Three Days (2010)

Directed by: Paul Haggis | 133 minutes | drama, thriller, romance, crime | Actors: Liam Neeson, Russell Crowe, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks, Jonathan Tucker, Brian Dennehy, RZA, Lennie James, Jason Beghe, Moran Atias, Patrick Brennan, Nazanin Boniadi, Tyrone Giordano, Ty Simpkins, Tamara Gorski

The American crime drama ‘The Next Three Days’ is about an average family in less ordinary circumstances. When Lara lands Brennan in jail on suspicion of murder, husband John moves heaven and earth to free her. If an appeal does not help, a dangerous alternative remains: a prison break. But how do you do that as an average man?

‘The Next Three Days’ takes more than two hours to answer that question. In those two hours we follow the arduous preparations for the escape and we visit the prison with John where his convicted wife is getting deeper and deeper into the pit.

All this could make for a gripping crime drama, but ‘The Next Three Days’ has become a well-intentioned mess. Trips to the gangster environment, hassles with a gorgeous housewife, hassles with family, hassles with a deaf motorcyclist, hassles with Pittsburgh’s stupid police force and much more. Some sequences (such as the action scenes at the end) are stretched too long, others do not follow each other well, suffer from a lack of logic or are not relevant at all. The run-up to the escape is again disproportionately long.

The fact that ‘The Next Three Days’ survives is due to an intense performance by Elizabeth Banks, the uncertainty about a happy ending and a few nice story twists. Plus, the messiness of the script means you’re never sure where you stand.

But still… with half an hour less and a sharper focus, this would have been a better film. The good news is that that better movie already exists. ‘The Next Three days’ is a remake of the French ‘Pour elle’, which keeps it to just under an hour and a half and has a more balanced script. Anyone who has seen ‘Pour elle’ can safely skip this remake. For all other enthusiasts, a nice crime drama remains, which you will forget in less than three days.