Review of The Next Three Days (2010) by Hari R — 22 Oct 2011

Review: This movie works on many levels as an example of the decline of American cinema.

It's a remake of a French movie. Now in the past Hollywood only chose to remake foreign movies that had a high concept hook. Think Roxanne, Three Men & A Baby, The Assassin. Not great films by anyones standards but you can see why an L.A studio exec would get excited by their simple twenty words or less pitches. Now even the most unoriginal European hits are snapped up for a remake. There is absolutely nothing in this movie that we haven't seen before and I refuse to believe that there aren't original scripts being submitted by American writers that tell fresher, more interesting stories than this one.

It's leading man is a New Zealand born Aussie, two of it's marquee names are Irish (Neeson and Wilde, both wasted in tiny roles, Neeson's no more than a pointless two minute cameo), and probably the strongest performance comes from Lennie James, an Englishman who's played Americans a lot more than he's played Brits. Isn't Hollywood meant to be the star factory? America just doesn't seem to produce acting talent anymore, instead it imports thesps from the rest of the English speaking world.

It's directed by a writer, and it shows. This, like most American cinema now, is a film that consistently substitutes the visual with the verbose. Cinema is well over a century old and it's a language everyone, in the western world at least, is fluent in. Please Hollywood, stop speaking down to us with expositional dialogue and give us back the visual storytelling you were once admired for. It's akin to someone speaking English purposely slowly to a well-educated foreigner. In the days of the studio system there were writers who commanded huge respect but were never even allowed on set never mind actually get a directing job. Those jobs went to DIRECTORS! Yes, those guys who know how to tell a story with pictures. Wouldn't it be nice if they still existed?

This movie is just a narrative mess, a simple idea overblown by unfulfilled ambition. Throughout we're led to believe Crowe's character is a bumbling fool, an amateur in over his head. However in the film's final act we're supposed to believe he's somehow overnight become a criminal mastermind. It's as inconsistent as the bruise makeup on Crowe's face, the continuity assistant should never work again after failing to spot this.

Director Haggis is best known for the loathsome Oscar winner "Crash", and for me should definitely be sent to Director jail (to borrow from the Hollywood Saloon). Let's just hope nobody tries to break him out.