THE NEXT THREE DAYS (2010)

The Next Three Days is a 2010 thriller film directed by Paul Haggis and starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks.

It was released in the United States on November 19, 2010. It was filmed on location in Pittsburgh. It is a remake of the 2008 French film Pour Elle (Anything for Her) by Fred Cavayé and Guillaume Lemans.

Plot summary

Lara Brennan (Banks) is convicted of murdering her boss after an altercation at work. Following the failure of her appeal, Lara's husband John Brennan (Crowe), a professor at a community college, becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her out of jail, while their son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during their prison visits.

John consults Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), a former convict who successfully escaped from prison seven times. Damon advises John to study the prison, saying "every prison has a key". Damon also warns him that the initial escape from the prison will be easy compared with avoiding capture after the escape. To that end, John must obtain false passports, new social security numbers, and a "truckload of cash" to have a chance of success. Damon also suggests going to an unpopular foreign destination for Americans. John learns Pittsburgh's time to lock-down the city's exits after a call is made to do so: 15 minutes for the city center and 35 minutes for all interstates, secondary roads, and stations or airports.

John contemplates several ideas that don't pan out and is defeated more than once, but latches onto a solid plan and the necessary paperwork after some painful efforts. John falsifies and plants blood work results indicating that his wife is in a state of hyperkalemia, and she is transferred to the hospital. He follows the ambulance and helps her to escape although she is doubtful and reluctant, motivated only by the idea of her son being without either parent.

With the police getting some lucky breaks, they are hot on John and Lara's trail through a series of chases. Throughout the film, John is shown assembling maps, photographs, notes, and other papers on a wall of his house. He tears them down and stuffs them into several garbage bags before leaving to rescue Lara, leaving one bag in the trash outside his home, and the rest in a dumpster some blocks away. As it turns out he did this selectively to misguide the detectives regarding their final destination. They have an uncomfortable moment at passport control, as a Canadian officer examines their passports and glances at the page of photographs showing people to stop. He allows them to pass. The shift changes, and as they walk down the hall, their photos are added to the list. An international flight is delayed, but the police were after the wrong destination.

At the end of the film, the family ends up safe in Caracas, Venezuela in a comfortable country house. Back in the United States, a detective who had attempted to catch Brennan returns to the scene of the crime although it had been some years since the crime occurred. Using his forensic skills, he manages to put together what really happened. It turns out that the killer of Lara's boss was really a hooded young woman after money, and a series of coincidences led to Lara's conviction. He remembers Lara saying a button popped off as she was leaving, and notices that it is raining just as it had been the night of the murder. He tosses a piece of paper in the current where the button would've fallen off, and finds it leads into a gutter. He searches the gutter but is unable to find the button. "You really thought you were gonna find it?" his assistant asks. But it turns out the button was there, buried under grime and dust, and the detectives miss it by seconds.

Cast

Russell Crowe as John Brennan

Elizabeth Banks as Lara Brennan

Brian Dennehy as George Brennan

Olivia Wilde as Nicole

Lennie James as Lieutenant Nabulsi

Aisha Hinds as Detective Collero

Daniel Stern as Meyer Fisk

RZA as Mouss

Jason Beghe as Detective Quinnan

Kevin Corrigan as Alex

Liam Neeson as Damon Pennington

Allan Steele as Sergeant Harris

BOX OFFICE :

The film earned $21,148,651 at the box office in the United States. Internationally it earned $41 million, for a worldwide total of $62 million