The Next Three Days

In Conviction, Hilary Swank plays a mother of two who puts herself through college and law school in order to free her brother after he is wrongly convicted of first degree murder. Russell Crowe, however, is no Hilary Swank. He's Russell Crowe after all and he doesn't have time for any of that fancy book learning. When his wife is sentenced to life in prison, he decides to bust her ass out in The Next Three Days.

Crowe is John Brennan, an English teacher who spends his days lecturing to community college students about Don Quixote. Brennan finds himself in his own Quixotic quest when his wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks, is arrested during family breakfast time for the murder of her boss. The circumstantial evidence is pretty damning. Lara had an argument with her boss earlier in the day. Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon and blood from the victim was found on her coat. John is thoroughly convinced of Lara's innocence, but their options dwindle as years pass and the appeals process goes nowhere.

John consults with an ex-con (Liam Neeson in a one scene cameo) who literally wrote the book on prison breaks. This formerly unassuming teacher sets in motion an intricate plan to free his wife and escape the country before authorities lock down the city. The ticking clock that gives the film its title kicks when John learns that Lara will be transferred from county jail to a maximum security penitentiary upstate.

The Next Three Days has good moments and weak moments. If you saw Crash, you know that Paul Haggis is not a subtle filmmaker. He's downright blunt and wants to spell everything out for the audience. That trait is evident with the running time of his latest picture. Next Three Days was based on a 2007 French film entitled Pour Elle, which was 96 minutes long. Haggis's version clocks in at over two hours. The movie chugs along at a lethargic pace as we watch the emotional toll that Lara's imprisonment has taken on her husband and young son.

While the dour emotional scenes drag on, the portions that focus on the actual jailbreak are riveting. Yes, they are a bit preposterous and Haggis tends to rely too much on convenient coincidences, but they are riveting. As a law-abiding Joe Average, John must find ways to gather enough cash to live on the run as well as acquire fake IDs. His nocturnal trips to the wrong part of town are tense as is a sequence where John tries out a homemade skeleton key during a visit to his wife. How he learned to make one seems simple enough. He saw it on YouTube. John also learns how to break into a car using only a tennis ball. There's more to the internet than just porn.

Crowe doesn't quite pull off the role of the unassuming school teacher, but he does excel at being gruff and brooding. There's not a lot of chemistry between he and Elizabeth Banks who still looks beautiful while trying to be haggard.

The Next Three Days could have used some judicious editing to tighten the pace and cut the fat. After the mediocrity of the first two acts, the film concludes with a thrilling climax as the prison escape finally happens. That itself might make the movie worthy of a rental.

Rating: ** (*****)