Blu-ray Movie Review: THE NEXT THREE DAYS Felt Like The Next Three Weeks

Getting time to myself on days off seems to becoming more of a regular occurrence lately, this is the second time in the last few weeks where I’ve had some time to kick back and relax, what did I do with that time? I took it upon myself to watch my latest LOVEFiLM rental The Next Three Days, a movie which I’ve heard plenty good things about but never really felt that inclined to watch. Turns out my initial thought was probably the right one because although this movie tells a very good story I just didn’t really enjoy it all that much.

Starring: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Ty Simpkins and Michael Buie

The Plot

John Brennan (Crowe) is your everyday average guy, a school teacher who comes home to his loving wife and son every night for the perfect family life. That is until one day police storm the house and arrest his wife Lara (Banks) for the murder of her boss, with the evidence of fingerprints and motive stacked against Lara she takes the easy way out and attempts suicide whilst locked up in prison. Losing all faith in the American justice system and believing his wife to be innocent John devises a plan to break Lara out so they can all be together again as a family.

The Verdict

So, John Brennan breaks bad, just like Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in AMC’s Breaking Bad, mild mannered school teacher Brennan is thrown into a situation which forces him to become a bad ass guy who carries a gun and makes shady deals in dodgy neighbourhoods. Don’t take all that as great though, although the action towards the end of this movie is Die Hard like neo noir, the plot takes to long to set up and at over two hours long I fear you may get bored.

Since watching this movie I’ve seen a whole host of reviews, some good, some bad, some mediocre. I have to agree with the latter “mediocre” would sum this movie up pretty good, I wouldn’t say I was blown away at all and like I’ve mentioned in the title of this post it really felt like the movie was longer than it needed to be, for me by the time we got to the main meat of the story I was bored and frankly didn’t really care anymore. I don’t think it’s because The Next Three Days has a bad story line I just think that maybe I’m more inclined to watch a more explosive thriller of a movie, Russell Crowe in Gladiator for instance.

I wouldn’t say that I’m a massive fan of Russell Crowe but he does do a very, very good job in this movie and shows how good of an actor he really is. His co-star and wife Elizabeth Banks is also brilliant, I don’t know to much about her but she is very good and very attractive. I didn’t see much point in Liam Neeson’s role here, the only man who ever escaped the prison where Crowe’s wife is holed up, I like Neeson I really, really do but for what he done here anyone could have played the role really. I’ve seen this movie likened to 1993’s The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford, for me that movie and its follow up US Marshall's were better, or at least I enjoyed them more.

It's not a bad movie, nor is it a bad story but I think they could have done with reining in the length of it a little.

Would I watch it again?

At over two hours long with a very deep plot I don’t think I would watch this again, I don’t think there would be anything to see that I didn’t catch first time around and I always have plenty other movies to watch. So, no is the short answer to that one.