John Brennan (Russell Crowe), an English teacher at a community college, is an unlikely candidate for jail breaking. But after three years of failed appeals and a likely long sentence for his wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks), it's his only perceived option. His research skills do prove useful, and his class reading list inspires a Quixotic determination.
John tracks down ex-con-cum-author Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson) in Brooklyn. Damon tells John all he needs to know about breaking someone out of a Pittsburgh prison, but warns him of how far he'll have to go and what he'll have to become to succeed.
Despite assorted beat-downs by local thugs and drug dealers, John doggedly overcomes every logistical and financial obstacle. Even at the playground with his increasingly depressed son Luke (Ty Simpkins), the attention of sexy single mom Nicole (Olivia Wilde) does not distract him. It does, however, provide one of the film's rare comic moments, as John, explaining that his private life is "complicated", abruptly tells a stunned Nicole his wife is in prison but "didn't kill that woman".
John's father George (Brian Dennehy) is largely mute but expressively so, and Mouss (Robert "RZA" Diggs) and Alex (Kevin Corrigan) are drug dealers who bring needed "speed" to their scenes.
"The Next Three Days", despite its obsessive protagonist and Mr. Haggis' typically strict attention-to-detail, leaves us feeling uncertain. The evidence against Lara is overwhelming, but we never see the murder trial, and the flashbacks of the crime are unreliable. John asks his class, "What in life do we really have control over?" Only what we choose to believe, this film would suggest.
| Movie title | The Next Three Days |
|---|---|
| Release year | 2010 |
| MPAA Rating | PG-13 |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | Writer-director Paul Haggis crafts an unconventional thriller from the French original, starring Russell Crowe as an English teacher bent on freeing his wrongfully-imprisoned wife. |
