The Next Three Days (2010)

The opening shot of "The next three days" in retrospect feels random and out of place ... like most of the events in this film. Jumping around in time has long been a trend and can be a great idea, but not in this case. A failed start for a failed project.

Followed by the shot of Russell Crowe driving a car at night with blood on his face we land
at a dinner table with two couples, one of them the Brennans, played by Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. She complains about her boss.

A few scenes later after having returned home we see her washing her dress from a bloodstain.
Right in that moment the police invades the house and arrests her. She is accused of the murder of her boss. Her husband John can't believe his eyes but the case seems to be clear and all evidence leave his wife guilty. Desperately unable to proof her innocence, John Brennan decides to infiltrate the prison and rescue her on the illegal and violent path.

This premise is dumb and unbelievable. For many reasons. The way Brennan is portrayed by Crowe makes us doubt he would be able to do the job and kill for love (unlike Liam Neeson in the movie I reviewed before who actually has a short appearance here too!). He has a son to care for that he definately would never leave behind. The danger of getting arrested himself is just too enormous. He would never take that risk knowing that then his son would be all alone. Not to mention that his relationship with his wife does not seem to be pure harmony all the time.

Crowe also meets another woman sometimes because his son and her daughter are friends but he is not really interested in her so her character is not pretty important. He stays true to his wife who is the most unbelievable character in the film by the way and even though at one point she confusingly suggests him to consider that she could actually really be a murderer he refuses to believe it and gets into preparation.

He searches for advice and help from criminals. Not an easy task as he soon has to experience. Of course he'll need a lot of money too. He even plans to sell the house. Messing around with drug dealers and that sort he draws the attention of the police (though the way the police come to consider him as a possible threat does not make a lot of sense).

The film really stretches our patience. It is way too long. There is so much time of preparation but when the show starts most of it seems to be improvised. Due to the weird pacing there can't be no real tension. Some scenes are edited in a strange way too. Many of them could have been left out of the film.

Some of the supporting roles are totally unnecessary in the way they are handled.
Like the woman Crowe meets from time to time and one of the police cops. They are in the movie but for such little time that in every scene we see them in we ask ourselves why they show this. There is just not enough significance to their roles.

There is also a weird countdown trying to increase the tension. But it's late in the movie when it is coincidentially, arbitrarily set to three more days. I was counting down the time too.
In the first act of the picture there was not enough interesting or essential happening. In the second half there was too much happening. Some of it leaving you in disbelief, some of it just to
increase the movie's running time, for spoiler reasons I won't go into detail about the events here.

It is hard to believe this mess was written and directed by Paul Haggis who made the great, best-picture winning movie (and one of my favorites) "Crash" back in 2004. Even though this one should have been easier to handle he screwed up this time. If there is any other movie you can get a hand on in the next three days then wait for that one, it might be the better choice.