REVIEW: Russell Crowe Tries to Roughen the Edges of The Next Three Days
Obviously, he wants her out for other reasons. But one of the problems with The Next Three Days is that even though we're repeatedly reminded why characters are taking action, we never really feel the emotional weight of the things they choose to do. Haggis adapted the screenplay himself (the original was written by Fred Cavayé and Guillaume Lemans), orchestrating the criss-crossing plot mechanics with aplomb. He has some mischievous fun with misdirection, opening the door to a number of doubts and uncertainties via a few clever, sneaky flashbacks.
But what about his characters? Haggis gives his actors plenty to do, and yet, paradoxically, they end up with little to work with. It's clear John wants Luke to have a mom again. But as a character, the kid seems like an afterthought, a placemarker that says, "Imagine Child Here." He's shuttled and shuffled from here to there as John works out his ever-more-complicated plan for the family's future happiness.
Maybe that's part of the point -- that John is so driven, he can barely see his own kid as an individual -- but the movie's ending hints at something different. What's more, we know John and Lara are really close because the movie keeps telling us so. Haggis doesn't seem to know how to establish real couplehood closeness without equating it with hot, unfettered sex -- and hey, I'm not knocking it. But it's lazy shorthand, pretty much the only kind the movie knows how to use. (In a late scene, there is an instance of tepid hand-holding, which is perhaps included to show how much John and Lara's relationship has matured.)
The actors do their best to give dimension to all the movie's dots and dashes. Banks has a wily, kitty-cat presence: She can look innocent one minute and conniving the next, which only adds to the story's "Did she or didn't she?" intrigue. And Crowe makes even the most implausible plot turns seem wholly believable. He carries John's conviction, his heavy sense of certainty, not just in his mournful eyes but in his pants pockets: Crowe always looks weighed down, by responsibility, worry and woe. He etches out a believable character even where, it seems, none was written in the first place.
But it's not enough. Haggis has constructed The Next Three Days with care, and cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine gives it the right moody, anxiety-ridden look. But by the movie's end, after gamely following its myriad twists and turns, I realized I was probably supposed to feel as if I'd been on a journey with these people -- and all I wanted to do was get away from them. It's not clear how we're supposed to feel about John and Lara at the end of The Next Three Days. Are we supposed to admire John's doggedness or feel worried for him? Either response would make sense. But Haggis doesn't know how to draw a clear, or even a conflicted, response from us. Like other Paul Haggis movies -- even the ideologically heavy-handed Crash -- The Next Three Days is trimly constructed. But Haggis can't get to his characters' deeper underlayers. This is a thriller in which every corner is squared; if only Haggis had left a few frayed edges, the thing might actually feel alive.
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Russel Crow, Denzel Washington, Hillary Swank, and Julia Roberts are the kiss of death for a movie for me. I just can't.
As much as I enjoyed Inception, Stephanie, I was very much on your side during the entirely pointless (and frighteningly fervent) crazy-person-commenter-backlash that resulted from your unfavorable review of that film on this website.
But 7 1/2 stars for this illogical Haggis-tripe? All I can say about that is...
That I continue to support free speech and an open dialogue about all works of art and that internet commenters can be super creepy.
Yes, Elizabeth Banks is very appealing. Russell Crowe, however? Incredibly, insanely unappealing. Like he is literally the reason I don't want to see this-even though I enjoyed your review.
Elizabeth Banks' character is such a bitch in this film, if she were my wife I would have gone through all that trouble to get her INTO prison, not get her out.
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