The Next Three Days –– directed by Paul Haggis –– suspense thriller about a woman convicted of murder and her husband who is not at all convicted she did it. Color 2010.
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Well, you may wonder if you are in your ripe forties and had the part Russell Crowe plays here how well could you play it? Not within a mile as well as Russell Crowe does, was my answer as I watched. He is in his scruffy three-days-unshaven mode here, and he is in the hands of rough story that carries us into its surprises without betraying our credulity. Crowe plays a man unexceptionally in love with his wife, well played by Elizabeth Banks, and the conviction he brings to his feeling for her is the carrying force of the film on an emotional level. This love is put to the test by his own foolish plans to rescue her which projects us into the level of action, where the film is never still, always thrusting us forward into its next frustration, calamity, conniption. Crowe is in virtually every scene, and his registration as an actor is sterling throughout. He is always on the emotional and physical money. The film, however, is grounded, not by this performance but by the writing and direction and playing of his son, who is quiet and calm and patient, and represents the unspoken value system of the piece therefore. True, the director takes us past certain improbabilities to reach its excitement, but they vanish swiftly as the plot parts and lets us in on it. Liam Neeson has one scene, and he is superb in it. Altogether a well-written, tightly told action adventure piece, beautifully produced, costumed, cast, written, designed, and performed.
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