Review of The Next Three Days (2010) by John E — 22 Jul 2011

The Next Three Days is a thriller that details the planning and execution of a prison break by a man who wants to rescue his wrongly accused wife. A successful man who wants nothing more than to put his family back together desperately puts everything at risk including his own life in order to bring his wife home. The aspects that put this film together were decent. The direction was good as was the acting and though the script seemed to take a while, it still fit well into the overall smoothness and understanding for the viewer. Though these aspects were good, unfortunately it ran the route of an average action film.

The direction by Paul Haggis (In the Valley of Elah) was very good. He had an incredible cast at his helm but he was able to put them in situations that would enable them put forth their best possible performances. Haggis is well known for doing this and has become a renowned director for it. His professionalism and ability to convert actor ability into reality has made him one of the best directors on the international market. He is also well known these action thrillers and helped to make the film the best it could be which unfortunately was not very far because of its generality.

The script of the film written by Paul Haggis was good, but seemed to drag on but this proved to be something that was somewhat appreciated because the slow details was able to explain every detail of the attempted prison break. The problem was that some of this slowness added onto the already generality of a thriller script, leaving nothing new to the imagination. That was another problem for this film, the predictability of it. It seemed as if there was nothing new, just some close calls that made for some average entertainment, but not much more. This makes it unfortunate for the audience, but still holds some entertainment value.

The acting was pretty good and rested on the shoulders of Russell Crowe (Robin Hood) who commanded his role well. Though he seemed detached for much it, this fact sort of blurred into the portions where he needed to show some emotion but this is a familiar part of Crowe's style. Though this was one of the main things going against him, it plays well in some portions of the film and helps to show how entranced he is with the thought of getting his wife out of prison. Elizabeth Banks (Surrogates) did a good job and was obviously starting to lose hope in herself within prison. She had more emotion than any other character and fit it well within her character. She was able to ease herself into her character and seemed to fit the role very well. The supporting characters were Brian Dennehy (Righteous Kill), Olivia Wilde (Year One), and Lennie James (Mob Rules) who all did adequate jobs in their respective roles. The chemistry of the cast was good and was choppy when the characters collided, which is better than some casts who fail to embrace the reality of their characters.

The Next Three Days was a good thriller but was disappointing in the fact that it failed to represent anything new in terms of this genre. For those involved, the aspects surrounding the acting and direction were good, but the script failed to live up to anything beyond the ordinary run of the mill suspense film. Even surrounding the actual breaking out of prison failed to meet anything that would have lived up to the buildup. Even worse was the predictability that surrounded the entire film. While it may have been structurally sound, it is unfortunate that it fell to the typical crisis of a film that makes it nothing more than a run of the mill thriller film.