DVD Review: Russell Crowe Shines in Taut Remake ‘The Next Three Days’

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly versionE-mail page to friendE-mail page to friendPDF versionPDF version
No votes yet

CHICAGO – Two equally ignored Oscar bait contenders from 2010 centered on the same basic question: to what extent would you go to free your beloved from prison? Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” and Paul Haggis’s “The Next Three Days,” are less interested in the characters behind bars than they are about those on the outside looking (and breaking) in. While neither film is Best Picture material, both are certainly worth a look.

Goldwyn and Haggis collaborated on 2006’s “The Last Kiss,” and it’s interesting to note the similarities in their most recent projects. “Conviction” and “Days” center on protagonists who are absolutely convinced of their loved one’s innocence, despite evidence to the contrary. Almost no information is revealed about the crime itself, and very few scenes take place in a courtroom. The plot focuses solely on the protagonist’s single-minded, self-sacrificing pursuit of justice, regardless of the personal toll.

HollywoodChicago.com DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0
DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0

Yet while “Conviction” told the true life tale of a woman’s sixteen-year journey through law school to free her wrongly accused brother, “Days” is a remake of Fred Cavayé’s expertly crafted 2008 French thriller, “Pour elle,” about a man determined to break his wife out of prison. Though “Days” is billed as a serious thriller, it’s also somewhat of a lark for Haggis in contrast to self-important social critiques like “Crash” and “In the Valley of Elah.” On the heels of his disappointingly dull work in “Robin Hood,” Russell Crowe delivers his most emotionally rich and disarmingly vulnerable work in years as John Brennan, a low-key community college professor who undergoes a “Straw Dogs”-like transformation in order to rescue his wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks), from life imprisonment on a murder charge. While Cavayé made the wife’s innocence quite clear from the get-go, Haggis chooses ambiguity over certainly, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions—that is, until a final moment that hits the nail on the head much like the upside down flag in “Elah.” Yet for the majority of its running time, “Days” is superb entertainment. The suspense builds gradually, leading to a 45-minute chase sequence of near misses and close calls guaranteed to make audiences hold their collective breath the entire way through.

Elizabeth Banks and Russell Crowe star in Paul Haggis’s The Next Three Days.
Elizabeth Banks and Russell Crowe star in Paul Haggis’s The Next Three Days.
Photo credit: Lionsgate Entertainment

As he did in “State of Play,” Crowe elevates a solid yet rather needless remake with his effortlessly magnetic screen presence. It’s especially interesting to watch him grapple with the film’s moral conundrums, such as his character’s potential need to abandon his son in order to save his wife. It’s nice to see a reliable comedy foil like Banks stretch her dramatic muscles, though the wearying effect of prison never quite registers on her flawless face. Thankfully, the film has an endlessly diverting supporting cast, filled with veteran character actors each given a scene to shine. Liam Neeson crackles as a master escape artist, Brian Dennehy brings riveting depth to his largely silent role as John’s father, and Daniel Stern does some uncharacteristically dramatic thesping as John’s ineffectual lawyer. As a longtime admirer of Stern, I took great pleasure in watching the guy from “Gladiator” get chewed out by the guy from “Home Alone.”

The Next Three Days was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 8, 2011.
The Next Three Days was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 8, 2011.
Photo credit: Lionsgate Entertainment

“The Next Three Days” is presented in its 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and includes an excellent array of special features. In an 18-minute featurette, Haggis discusses his surprise at how eager the Allegheny County Jail was to be the setting of a prison break thriller. The director chose Pittsburgh as his setting because he was looking for a city with a past that contrasted with its present (what used to be a steel factory town is now a hub of education and research). Haggis also enjoyed utilizing the town’s vigorous team spirit for a key twist during the climactic chase scene. In a brief featurette on the ensemble cast, Dennehy says that he enjoyed tackling a nonverbal role since it sharply contrasted with his work on the stage. One of the oddest extras is the mini-doc, “True Escapes for Love,” hosted by actor Jason Beghe (a.k.a. Detective Quinn), who skims through some amazing real life escape stories, many of which were inspired by Bonnie and Clyde (apparently none of the copycats made it to the end of that film). The doc seems designed to discourage viewers from breaking their own loved ones out of prison.
 
A short outtake reel scores a few genuine laughs, especially when the child actor playing Crowe’s son starts wailing “I want my daddy!” The gallery of deleted scenes unfortunately doesn’t have a “play all” option, and largely consists of forgettable bookends and scrapped subplots involving babysitters, realtors, annoying neighbors, and many other extraneous characters. There are a couple poignant moments, such as John’s emotional prison visit where Lara asks him to stop bringing their son. A scene where John is visited at home by the ghostly apparition of Lara was directly inspired by “Pour elle,” and is evocative of other “missing wife” mysteries from France, such as “Tell No One.” Accompanied by producer Michael Nozik and editor Jo Francis in the audio commentary, Haggis makes the bold claim that his film is more French than the original picture, which he argues would’ve been more accessible to mainstream Hollywood. By expanding the story from a brisk 96 minutes to a meatier 122 minutes, Haggis was attempting to make a darker film that further explored the conflicted motivations of his characters, particularly during the frantic third act. The initial version clocked in at around three hours, with roughly 385 scripted scenes. To Francis’s credit, the final cut doesn’t feel a second too long (or short).

‘The Next Three Days’ is released by Lionsgate Entertainment and stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Ty Simpkins, Lennie James, Olivia Wilde, Brian Dennehy, RZA, Daniel Stern and Liam Neeson. It was written and directed by Paul Haggis. It was released on March 8, 2011. It is rated PG-13.

HollywoodChicago.com staff writer Matt Fagerholm

By MATT FAGERHOLM
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
matt@hollywoodchicago.com

User Login

Free Giveaway Mailing

TV, DVD, BLU-RAY & THEATER REVIEWS

  • Manhunt

    CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.

  • Topdog/Underdog, Invictus Theatre

    CHICAGO – When two brothers confront the sins of each other and it expands into a psychology of an entire race, it’s at a stage play found in Chicago’s Invictus Theatre Company production of “Topdog/Underdog,” now at their new home at the Windy City Playhouse through March 31st, 2024. Click TD/UD for tickets/info.

Advertisement



HollywoodChicago.com on Twitter

archive

HollywoodChicago.com Top Ten Discussions
tracker