Film Review with Robert Mann – The Next Three Days

13th January 2011

The Next Three Days ***½

Paul Haggis is a screenwriter with a truly enviable list of credits behind him. An award-winner who, in 2006, became the first person to write two Best Film Oscar winners back-to-back – 2004’s Million Dollar Baby directed by Clint Eastwood and 2005’s Crash which Haggis directed himself and for which he also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as well as receiving an additional four nominations, including one for Best Direction –
his previous writing credits also include the screenplay for Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers, the story for that film’s companion piece, Letters from Iwo Jima, 2007’s In the Valley of Elah (which Haggis both wrote and directed) and the two most recent James Bond movies, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. With such an impressive track record for excellent screenwriting and superb direction, you could easily expect his latest film, The Next Three Days to be another superb addition to his resume, with him once again taking on both writing and directing duties. The successes of his previous films, however, seem to be out of reach for his latest effort. A failure at the box office in the states where Russell Crowe seems to be box office poison, The Next Three Days has also failed to generate the kind of critical acclaim that Haggis has become used to with his previous works and looks set to be all but ignored in this year’s awards race. Is this because Haggis has lost that spark he once had, however, or is it simply that, based on his previous works, the level of expectation on this one is perhaps a tad too high?

John Brennan (Russell Crowe) is a professor of English at a community college who leads an idyllic life with wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks), a career woman, and son Luke (Ty Simpkins). John’s entire life is turned upside down, however, when Lara is arrested for murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. John is convinced of her innocence but with all the evidence stacked against her and everyone else certain that she is guilty of the crime it looks as though she will never get out. Struggling desperately to hold his family together and enlisting some help from Nicole (Olivia Wilde), the mother of one of Luke’s friends, he pursues every means available to prove she didn’t commit murder but to no avail. After three years, and with the rejection of their final appeal, Lara becomes desperate and attempts suicide. John decides there is only one course of action: he must break her out of prison. Enlisting the help of Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), John embarks on a dangerous and elaborate plan to save his wife. But he wants it too much and as things begin to go wrong and strains are placed on his relationship with both his wife and son, it begins to look as though his plan might not pan out as expected. To make matters worse, in just a few days time Lara is scheduled to be moved to another prison, meaning that if John is to act it has to be now. Whatever happens, the next three days are going to be the most crucial of both John and Lara’s lives.

Considering the pedigree of the talent behind the camera and Paul Haggis’ impressive track record in terms of both writing and direction, it is rather surprising that the one thing that seems to let The Next Three Days down is, if anything, its screenplay, the writing here being nowhere near as good as you might expect it to be based on the quality of Haggis’ past work. The problems emerge from the very beginning with an opening scene that is actually set somewhere in the middle of the story – not at the end as you might initially suspect – seemingly having no other purpose than to place the idea in our heads that John’s plan might fail, something which proves to be completely unnecessary given the handling of certain events that occur later in the story. After this rather pointless scene the words “The last 3 years” appear on the screen before the film goes on to very briefly show us the seemingly idyllic life of John and Lara before she is arrested. You might think that this part of the film would be used to really establish the characters before things really get going but, aside from establishing that John is a loving husband with a wicked sense of humour and that Lara is highly strung up and severely stressed following an unpleasant encounter with her boss – the woman who’s murder she has been accused of – we get very little insight into who the characters actually are at this point, something which proves to be a slight hindrance in terms of character development. Further development before the arrest takes place would have been very helpful but unfortunately the arrest takes place within a matter of minutes, quickly ending our view into the lives of the characters beforehand. What’s more, aside from a brief conversation detailing Lara’s encounter with her boss, we get little insight into why she might become accused of the murder, more information not being given until a (slightly clichéd) black and white flashback scene later in the film. The flaws in the script don’t end here either with all the establishing scenes feeling a bit rushed and slightly underdeveloped. After the arrest has happened, events jump ahead two years and we are just expected to accept that certain things have happened without any real insight into goings on of these two years. In particular, the fact that we only see John’s perspective – which initially amounts to a strained relationship with both his son and wife and a sense of desperation as he tries to prove his wife’s innocence – robs us of insights into exactly how Lara is coping with everything that is happening, the most we see of her time being on the inside being scenes where she is visited by John and one scene just taking place just after her suicide attempt. All these early scenes are let down by a simple lack of dramatic and emotional depth, something that really should be present here. “The last 3 months” – when John starts to plan breaking Lara out of prison, things become a whole lot more interesting, even if they are still heavily lacking. A meeting with an ex-convict who has escaped from prison seven times – played ably by Liam Neeson in a role that lasts a mere few minutes but is important enough to be considered more than just a cameo appearance – gives John all the information he needs about escaping prison and is well constructed, even if it does feel a bit like an exposition dump in some ways, while the use of YouTube in finding ways to plan the breakout seems a bit contrived and absurd but, given some of the crazy stuff on the site in real life, not entirely implausible – both things that perhaps seem a tad too convenient for the purposes of the story, a means to instruct a normal everyday man in how to escape prison without digging deeper. John’s planning of the breakout, meanwhile, while precise and all, tends to not be particularly elaborate or especially interesting for the most part and as things go wrong – in scenes that are very tense I might add – it is hardly surprising, rather inevitable. For much of the duration, the film seems to be a very muted thriller that is nowhere near as intense as it is trying to be but things kick into higher gear later on in the scenes depicting the actual breakout attempt itself – “The last 3 days”. At this point, something in the film really changes. Delivering some major tension, the execution of the breakout itself is extremely well handled and, as we see the plan come together, it actually seems quite genius, even if it is hard to believe that an English teacher working at a community college could possibly put it all together, even with three years worth of time, a meeting with an ex-convict and the full resource of YouTube at his disposal. The attempt to escape the authorities is also very intense, a climax that is a thrill a minute, an incredibly tense and thrilling 30 minutes or so and a great a pay-off to a disappointing build up. Any failings earlier in the film are virtually forgivable at this point, such is the level of heart wrenching, almost unbearable tension present in this prolonged sequence and you really will wonder if they actually are going to get away, Haggis doing a great job of keeping us guessing. And a final scene that goes back to the scene of the murder and reaffirms the guilt or innocence (I’m not saying which) of Lara is also decently handled, showing us how she became to be ‘guilty’ of the crime in the eyes of the law. Masterfully constructed, the execution of the escape is simple but actually quite clever. The built up to it, however, i.e. most of the film, is something of a letdown. Disjointed would be the best word to describe the overall plot of the film, the first two acts (or should I say days) being considerably lacking while the third is superb and goes a long way to make up for the earlier failings. On the acting front, meanwhile, the actors are good but are hindered somewhat by characters that aren’t especially well developed. We really don’t get enough development for the character of Lara in particular and Olivia Wilde’s role is relatively insignificant in terms of the big picture, her character merely seeming to be a plot convenience towards the end rather than a fully fledged part of the story. Russell Crowe, as ever, though delivers a very high standard performance and had no trouble carrying the film. So, The Next Three Days is a bit a bit generic considering the talent involved but very enjoyable nonetheless – certainly a great film to see any of the three days of the weekend. It definitely isn’t going to be winning any Oscars like Crash did but this isn’t something you’ll be likely to care about. The Next Three Days is not Crash but it is not a car crash of a film either.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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