The Next Three Days

“The Next Three Days”

The Next Three Days is a crime/drama/action movie directed by Paul Haggis. It stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, and Ty Simpkins. The Next Three Days is about John Brennan, played by Crowe, attempts to break his wife Lara Brennan, played by Banks, out of prison after she is accused of murder.

The movie begins with Mr. and Mrs. Brennan having dinner with another couple and after a couple of drinks Lara starts talking about how much she hates her boss.  A argument then begins between her and the other woman over the issue and after a exchange of remarks both couples get the check and they go home. The next morning at the Brennan house, Lara gets arrested for the murder of her boss. John spends the next couple of years raising their son Luke, played Ty Simpkins, by himself. During that time John does all he can to get Lara out of jail because he knows she’s insist. Also, all this time separated is taking a toll on the whole family; especially on Lara and Luke’s relationship. Lara’s lawyer, played by Daniel Stern, tells John that Lara doesn’t have chance on being released because there is too much evidence against her. John goes to tell Lara that she’s not going to be able to get out but she realizes what john is about to tell her and she immediately retreats back to her cell. Lara then attempts suicide but she survives. At that time John decides that he is going to sneak her out of jail. Over the next three months he uses every resource he can from ex-cons who escape from prisons before, illegal id dealers and internet videos to form a precise plan to break Lara out of Jail. With the plan not completely finished Lara tells John that she is being moved to a different jail, so John must execute his plan in the next three days or his plan that he’s been working on for three months will go to waste.

I thought the acting in this movie was very good. I hadn’t seen Elizabeth Banks in another role besides a comedic before and I have to say that it was good. Like for example when Crowe goes to tell her that she isn’t going to be able to get out she go from having being a bit happy because she gets to see her husband to extremely crushed because she has lost at faith in everything. All the acting in general in this movie was pretty good.

One thing that I didn’t like about the movie was that it sort of drag on. I mean I guess I understand that it has to drag on to a point since they needed to portray the months going by but I think I dragged on a bit too much still. Another thing is during the first half of the movie I was bored. That may have been the design of the movie to represent John’s transformation from college English teacher/single father to as it was put I the movie a guy who is willing to push an older women down to the floor because she is in the way between him and freedom. I don’t like the way that it goes from pretty boring to a lot of action in the later part of the movie just because it’s not a good thing when a person becomes bored while watching a movie whether it was done intentionally or not.

All in all it was a good movie. I give it 3 stars.