The Next Three Days requires the viewer to accept that many of the key plot points hang on coincidence, luck and random chance. These three have their place in storytelling, but any narrative in which they act as the driving force is doomed to fail because people always look for contextual plausibility and cohesion. As an example, Inception makes sense within its own world, even if that world itself is illogical when compared to real life. The Next Three Days has a protagonist who stumbles through its events in an almost passive manner, doing an amateurish job and somehow making progress. I’ve basically stamped on the film’s wonky face before even explaining what it’s about, so let’s move one.
The Next Three Days stars talking Australian bear Russell Crowe as John Brennan, an academic whose life with wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) and their young son is idyllic until the long arm of the law reaches in and whisks her away to prison for murder. John believes she is innocent and after three years fighting for her freedom he takes things into his own hands and decides to break her out of jail. To do this he starts by visiting former escaped con turned best-selling author Liam Neeson who makes the briefest of cameos before ducking out, presumably due to embarrassment.
John continues to blunder around the underworld, collecting fake passports, drug money and the kind of things he thinks he will need once the escape has been completed. Using an incredibly incriminating wall of crap in his home to plot out the plan, he initiates his roguish scheme. If I was being diplomatic I’d call the results surprising, only for leaked cables to later reveal that what I really mean is ‘bullshit to the power of infinity’.
The performances themselves are not really at fault. Elizabeth Banks is suitably angsty and dishevelled as Brennan’s wife and Crowe does his level best to deal with a script that is about as coherent as a child explaining The Usual Suspects.
Any decent human being will feel cheated by where the film leads. I complained that The Tourist felt badly researched, and the same is true here. Leave The Next Three Days well alone.
