THE NEXT THREE DAYS is the American remake of a French thriller about an ordinary guy who has no option but to bust his wife out of prison and go on the run when she starts experiencing mental health difficulties. Watching this, I couldn't help but wonder what the original movie would have been like and how much better it could have possibly been.
THE NEXT THREE DAYS is certainly a passable thriller by Hollywood standards as it maintains a tense realism throughout. Russell Crowe is well cast as the dedicated family man willing to do anything it takes to get his family back together and the thriller aspects of the story, particularly the prison break elements, are well handled.
However, one real problem the film has is the padding; it seems go on and on and on without ever going anywhere, especially in the early on scenes which feature Crowe trying to make some contacts on the streets. Paul Haggis handles the direction well, but he needed to employ a ruthless editor when it came to the length. I'm not quite sure how this happened, since the original French film has a relatively short running time in comparison.
The other problem with Elizabeth Banks, who just doesn't work as a convincing, serious actress. She was fine in SLITHER, but in this and MAN ON A LEDGE she feels badly out of her depth. The nadir of the film comes during the inexcusably cheesy moment where she's hanging out of the car and screaming; I've rarely seen such nonsense outside of a B-movie!
THE NEXT THREE DAYS is certainly a passable thriller by Hollywood standards as it maintains a tense realism throughout. Russell Crowe is well cast as the dedicated family man willing to do anything it takes to get his family back together and the thriller aspects of the story, particularly the prison break elements, are well handled.
However, one real problem the film has is the padding; it seems go on and on and on without ever going anywhere, especially in the early on scenes which feature Crowe trying to make some contacts on the streets. Paul Haggis handles the direction well, but he needed to employ a ruthless editor when it came to the length. I'm not quite sure how this happened, since the original French film has a relatively short running time in comparison.
The other problem with Elizabeth Banks, who just doesn't work as a convincing, serious actress. She was fine in SLITHER, but in this and MAN ON A LEDGE she feels badly out of her depth. The nadir of the film comes during the inexcusably cheesy moment where she's hanging out of the car and screaming; I've rarely seen such nonsense outside of a B-movie!