Life for John and Lara Brennan is miserable after she is convicted of a murder she says she did not commit. Three years later while struggling with the demands of work and raising his son alone, John is still trying to establish her innocence. When her final appeal is rejected, Lara becomes suicidal, forcing John to exercise the only option he has left: Break her out of prison.
...The most effective scenes employ the Hitchcockian maxim that you can show a couple kissing for as long as you like provided there's a bomb under the bed. Haggis has plenty of bombs and plenty of beds to put them under.
In the third act, both Haggis and his actors kick it into high gear, leading to a breathless chase sequence, the outcome of which is unpredictable to the last moments.
Managing to overcome the contrivances and implausibilities of the storyline, The Next Three Days succeeds through the sheer verisimilitude of the performances and direction.
The Next Three Days is kind of a throwback to the classic action movies Hollywood put out in the mid-nineties - the 'one man versus the world' era of thrillers, in which lantern-jawed heroes fight to save their family against improbable odds
Even with an actor of Crowe's skill, it's hard to believe the mild, thoughtful John would take to the mean streets of Pittsburgh for fake IDs, blast his way into drug houses and such.
