THE NEXT THREE DAYS

US, 2010, 105 minutes, Colour.
Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy.
Directed by Paul Haggis.

Have you had the experience while watching a film, a new film, that you have actually seen a lot of it before but can’t remember where? Fans of French films who have not checked where The Next Three Days derives from may well have this sometimes alarming déjà vu. It was a relief at the end to find that it is based on a French drama of only two years ago, Pour Elle (Anything for Her) with Diane Kruger and Yvan Attal.. No wonder it was familiar.

France has been replaced by the US, Pittsburg specifically. Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) has adapted the plot well and Americanised it very satisfactorily.

It begins as a drama and ends as a thriller, probably quite far-fetched, but suspenseful as the last part unfolds.

Russell Crowe plays a loving husband and father (real life mellowing him?). Elizabeth Banks plays his wife. Suddenly, police intrude into their home and arrest her, charging her with murder. Circumstantial evidence brings a guilty verdict and a long sentence. Her husband visits her faithfully. Her little son affects indifference because she doesn’t come home. Can anything be done?

This is a story where a fairly laidback and genial teacher devises a plan to effect his wife’s escape from prison. He studies various ways this might be done. He interviews a man who escaped many times and has written a book about it (a solid cameo from Liam Neeson). Gradually, after a long time of hit and miss experiments and testing possibilities, he does make a plan. The question, of course, is, once it is under way, will it work, will the unexpected happen (it does) and can they possibly get away.

While the first part of the film is fairly measured and spends a lot of time building up the characters and showing how the plan might seem a folly, the execution of the plan is effective and tense. Part of the effectiveness of the film is that the family seem fairly ordinary (with Brian Dennehy as the grandfather along with other relatives). Audiences can identify with them, with the shock of the arrest and the prospect of ruined lives.

Entertaining even if you have doubts afterwards that this kind of thing could really happen.

1. The adaptation of the French film, Anything for Her? This film in its own right?

2. The Pittsburgh setting, Pennsylvania story: the mood, ordinary people, prisons? Police? The musical score?

3. The plausibility of the plot and characters: the arrest, the evidence against Lara, the long sentence, the effect of the prison sentence on the whole family? John, Luke? John’s despair, the plan? The preparation, the idea, the execution of the escape? The plan and human error?

4. The structure of the film: the situation with John, the flashback from the dying drug dealer in the car? Lara, her work, her love for John, Luke? The dinner, John’s brother, the sister-in-law and the clash, the later concern? The argument? The possibility that Lara had killed her boss? The antagonism? At home, serene, the harsh intrusion, the arrest? Returning to the sequence with the drug dealer? Moving forward to the next three days?

5. The explanations of the escape attempt, the detail? The audience following the plan? Suspense and timing?

6. Lara’s character, ordinary woman, wife and mother? The fight, her self-assertion? At home, the arrest, the effect of prison, her life, the visits, Luke ignoring her, her physical health, the charts, despairing, taunting John that she was guilty?

7. John, the teacher, ordinary, the regular life? Looking after Luke, single parent? Going to the park, Carrie and her mother, the play? Leading up to the discussion, his telling the mother about Lara and prison? The party and the zoo? At work, giving up work, the visits to Lara?

8. Going online, the visit with the man who had escaped from prison so many times, the nature of the discussion, the character, the explanations, the key?

9. Setting up the chart, the detail, the elements?

10. John’s brother, the visits? Going to his father, tensions with his father, relationship with his mother? The grandparents minding Luke?

11. The ambulance, following it, getting into the ambulance, looking at the charts, testing out the timing?

12. The key, the visit to the prison, the key breaking in the lock? The surveillance and his responses?

13. The decision to move Lara, hurrying his decision?

14. The party, Luke, John’s parents, the stay, the father seeing the ticket, the emotional farewell?

15. The police, characters, their suspicions? The detective and his investigating over time, the sharp responses of his partner? Still looking for evidence at the end, alternates to Lara’s behaviour? Looking for the button – the drain, the irony?

16. The need for money, the consideration of a bank robbery? John, going to the drug centre, the confrontation, the characters, desperation, the dealers and their bluffs, the shooting, the fearful buyer, John taking him in the car, his death, leaving him on the bench? The police and their follow-up?

17. The detection of the car, the registration, finding John’s house, the plan, torn up and in the dumpster? Interrogating John’s parents?

18. The ambulance, the hospital, the chase in the hospital, changing clothes, changing cars? On the road? Going to the house, Luke not there, going to the zoo? On the highway, the ruses to escape detection? The patrols? Giving the family the lift and getting through?

19. The element of their destination, the suggestion of Haiti, the truth about Venezuela? The checks at the airport, the timing, getting through?

20. Success? Issues of justice, taking justice issues into one’s own hands? Success?