The Next Three Days

Plot, Story, Action, Family, Combine for Entertaining Film
The Next Three Days, PG-13, ****, Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, Liam Neeson, Oliva Wilde, Ty Simpkins. Lionsgate film. Director Paul Haggis. Length: 133 minutes.

The film begins with the caption “The Next Three Years.” This gives the audience an opportunity to watch the story develop into a compelling plot and interesting situation.
Two couples are having dinner in a restaurant and an argument develops.
John Brennan (Russell Crowe) and Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) were one of the two couples having the disagreement with their dinner companions. The focus of the argument is between Lara and her boss. They all leave the restaurant without solving any problems. Lara is not a happy camper.
John teaches English at a local college and Lara is a business executive. John and Lara’s son, Luke (Ty Simpkins), is just a few years old.
Soon the police arrive at their home and arrest Laura for murder. She claims to be innocent. However, the evidence is overwhelming.
She is sentence to 20 years in jail. All attempts at obtaining a reprieve are soon exhausted.
So the mild mannered John decides to learn how to break his wife out of jail. At this point everything begins to become very complicated and dangerous.
John finds Damron (Liam Neeson) who has escaped from prison numerous times. He learns a few tricks of the trade from Damron.
John is teaching Don Quixote in his course at college. He mentions something that had an impact on what John decides to do. To paraphrase, “Some people choose to live in the reality of their own thinking.”
John uses the power of the Internet to learn more about how to break the law. As I have stated before, the Internet has tons of information. Most of it is productive and legal. However, some of the information teaches people the wrong way to handle some problems. It has the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The movie reminded me of the old song. Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes. It is about a couple who meet to plan their escape. Now back to the drama.
John learns the price of committing unlawful acts through the process of hard knocks. He is not very good at breaking the law. However, just give him a little time, and his skills begin to develop. After all he is an English teacher. I am sure that gives him plenty of varied experience.
As John’s plan becomes closer to activating, the song, The Things We do For Love by Stweart/Goldman surfaced in my thoughts. All of us have done some really crazy things for that special little lady. John really takes it to the limit.
He has to learn the animalistic instincts of survival and how to protect his family in order to attempt this unusual feat of breaking his wife out of jail. Let’s not forget what to do if the escape succeeds.
I recommend the film for character development, plot, story, and action.