Susan Granger’s review of “The Next Three Days” (Lionsgate)
Screenwriter/director Paul Haggis (“Crash,” “In the Valley of Elah”) misses so many chances to make an impact in this heavy-handed morality tale about a devoted husband struggling to hold his family together while is wife is incarcerated for a crime he believes she didn’t commit.
Since hot-headed Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) openly loathed her female boss, she’s the prime suspect when the executive is found murdered in a Pittsburgh parking garage. On the basis of circumstantial evidence, Lara is convicted of homicide, but her husband John (Russell Crowe) steadfastly maintains that she’s innocent. When the appeals process is exhausted, Lara attempts suicide in despair. So, while caring for their young son Luke (Ty Simkins), John realizes he must come up with a plan to free his wife before she’s transferred from Allegheny County Jail to a state prison. That involves seeking the help of a street-smart ex-con (Liam Neeson), obtaining fake passports and I.D.s, fashioning a “bump key,” learning about explosives on YouTube and associating with dastardly drug dealers. Since John is a professor of English, teaching about the irrational fantasy world of “Don Quixote” at a local community college, it’s not surprising that his belief in virtue is more important that virtue itself. So as the clock is ticking, he desperately devises an intricate, elaborate scheme to help her escape, based on the philosophical concept: “What if we chose to exist in a reality completely of our own making?”
Haggis paces the action as an edge-of-your-seat thriller but the pretentious plot is implausible, even though it’s adapted from France’s 2008 “Pour Elle” (“Anything for Her”) and Russell Crowe’s dilemma is compelling. One of John’s more bonehead ideas is plastering an entire wall of their home with his extensive research, maps and plans, plus involving a stunning single mom (Olivia Wilde) whose daughter is having a birthday party at the zoo.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Next Three Days” is an ambiguous, suspenseful 6, waiting until the conclusion to establish whether Lara is innocent or guilty.
