14 DAY TRIAL // Billboards for Paul Haggis’ latest film, “The Next Three Days,” starring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks and Ty Simpkins as the ideal loving family, ask moviegoers what they’d do if they had just 72 hours to save all those they loved. Ironically enough, the film spends about an hour to offer even the slightest hint about what that answer might be in the case of John Brennan (Crowe), a soft-spoken college professor of literature whose wife has received life in prison for a murder he knows she couldn’t have possibly committed. And just as much to show us why the film is called that.
Directed and written by the critically acclaimed Haggis, whose credits also include “Crash” (as both), “Million Dollar Baby” and “Casino Royale” (as writer), the film takes a long hard look at the average man – and what he’d do in a situation of crisis, when his entire world is falling apart.
Just like we only use about 10 percent of our brain’s real capacity, they say you never know what a man (or woman) is really capable of until you push them to their very limit. Brennan is just that man and to watch his transformation from a “softie” to someone capable of the cruelest acts to save his family is quite a fascinating experience.
The film, being the intelligent thriller that it is, is entirely constructed from flash-forwards and flash-backwards, interspersed with scenes that make sure the viewers “get it.” Otherwise, the whole trip would be lost on them since it would lack the required ingredient: credibility.
John (Crowe) and Lara Brennan (Banks) are a typical family living in a large, gorgeous house in Pittsburgh, with their young son Luke (Simpkins). While he’s the most mannered gentlemen imaginable, she has a flammable temper, which is made clear from the second scene, which sees her complaining about her boss and getting into a fight with a friend over dinner.
The very next day, police bust into the Brennan home to arrest Lara: her boss has been found dead in a parking lot. “The evidence is compelling,” we learn: the fingerprints on the murder weapon match, she has blood on her coat, she hated the boss, therefore had motive.
In other words, it’s not looking good for her. After 3 years of appeals and still hoping that the legal system would not make the horrid mistake of sentencing an innocent person, the hammer drops: Lara will spend the rest of her life in jail.
This is the precise point where John realizes that, in order to do the right thing, he must turn bad – and when the above-mentioned transformation begins. Desperation sets in underneath that soft-spoken façade of the stylish intellectual, and Crowe more than makes audiences see and feel it.
Here is a man who not only believes his wife is innocent (though viewers will only find out the truth in the end – and quite a surprising twist it will be), but who is also convinced that living without her is worse than death. By extension, the latter is the only option available to him.
As his son progressively starts shutting out the rest of the world, including his own jailed mother whom he won’t even look at, and as Lara gives in to desperation, John hardens, even though his very nature betrays him as “not the hero type,” he is Everyman. And Everyman is admittedly capable of moving mountains if he’s in a despairing enough of a situation.
John decides to bust out his wife from prison, take their son and move to a remote country, where the long arm of the law won’t be able to reach them. However, halfway through the movie, he learns he actually has only 3 days to do it, before Lara is moved from county jail to state prison.
Luckily, even before that, John had begun his “work,” by doing research online (on YouTube, of all places, which is precisely why his endeavor seems doomed from the start) and paying closer attention to details.
Liam Neeson also makes a brief appearance as a repeat escapee who offers John the first tips on how to break out of jail. The entire thing comes across as a DIY type of project one gets assigned from school, it’s John’s naivety in believing he could pull this off that makes the film different from the rest of thriller / action movies of the type.
Olivia Wilde is Nicole, a woman who also gets to play a huge part in John’s escape plan even though she never finds out about it. However, the biggest part in the scheme is played by John’s father George (Brian Dennehy), a man who’s happier mumbling than actually speaking to John. Still, his lines, though counting perhaps no more than 50 words, make one of the strongest performances in the film.
Speaking of performances, critics say the weakest link of the film is (aside from the fact that it takes too long to build the story) the lack of chemistry between the two leads, Crowe and Banks.
On the other hand, one must note that, while his wife is John’s motivation for everything he does, the camera doesn’t necessarily have to show how close they were before all this for viewers to relate to his situation. Crowe more than makes up for this: his furrowed brow and eyes do all the work, he doesn’t even have to say a thing.
In fact, Crowe’s superb performance makes up for a lot of things that are flawed in the film, from a bunch of twists and elements in the plot that require viewers to practice willing suspension of disbelief, to the slower pace of the story at certain points.
When John’s transformation is done, it’s so shocking that even his wife has trouble believing this was the man she once knew and loved. Audiences are even more surprised, for it hardly seemed possible until just minutes ago. If only for that, for confirmation that Crowe remains one of the most solid and convincing actors of today, “The Next Three Days” is a must-see.
“The Next Three Days” runs for 133 minutes and is rated PG-13 for violence, drug material, language and some thematic elements. It opened in the US on November 19, will arrive in Finland and Norway on November 26, and conclude its run in Germany, on January 20, 2011.
