Russell Crowe smoulders and slow burns better than just about any actor working, past or present. It is for this reason that whatever movie he makes, I go and see it. Robin Hood got panned, but I saw it and loved it. I thought it was a fine prequel to the original story and it was Crowe at his smouldering finest. Until now.
The Next Three Days is a suspense thriller meant to both engage and intrigue the audience and it succeeds. Crowe plays John Brennan, a community college English teacher married to Lara, played by Elizabeth Banks, a sometimes abrasive business woman. Their son Luke is the center of their world and the tight writing and dialogue depicts a woman who is truly in love with her family, if somewhat jaded by the world around her.
It is for this reason that when the police come calling and arrest Lara on suspicion of the murder of her boss, the audience is left wondering not whether it is possible that Lara did it, but why. She’s contentious, but loving–jaded, but honest and her arrest and imprisonment breaks Luke’s will. At 6 years old, he’s left defending his mother against slanders and slurs about which he is uncertain and while dad (Crowe) tries to help, he is lost in another world.
Paul Haggis wrote and directed the film and it is his writing that stands out. Haggis turns a mean hand at un-cliched and simple dialogue, allowing character to shine through. There is, of course, some suspension of disbelief as Crowe’s character thrusts himself into the violent world of drug and illegal document trading and gets the upper hand, just barely, on a couple of meth lab operators. It is a moment that, perhaps, could have been dropped from the story, but it’s not altogether an outlier.
Several sequences show Professor Brennan teaching Don Quixote and discussing its meaning with students. In those sequences, the audience is treated not to a teacher who’s rote knowledge of a text is on display, but of one who is visibly moved by the book which is about living in an alternate reality, about choosing one’s own path, one’s own destiny. After those sequences, Crowe’s Brennan makes his choice. This is when Crowe’s slow burn is at its finest. He must at once balance his tender and loving care of his young son with the fierce determination to not just exonerate his wife, but to set her free.
The film is about choices and at once descending into the reality of the present while choosing to live in an alternate reality of the future. “This will not be your life, I promise,” Crowe’s Brennan tells Lara. “I know you and I promise you this will not be your life.” With Herculean effort, then, Crowe makes critical and life-changing decisions to save Lara. But its her simple and silent moment of touching his hand that helps him make the most critical decision of all in the film-the one that will not only save their lives, but give them meaning as well by saving Luke.
The film is taut and superlative. The camera is close to all of the characters, even lingering for moments on secondary ones like Nicole, a pretty single mom who gets to know Crowe’s character while Lara is in prison, or Crowe’s on-screen father played by Brian Dennehy, who’s few lines in the film portray a strained, though not un-affectionate relationship with his son.
The police officers, who could have been portrayed as buffoons and second-guessers, are people with character, nuance and compassion. They never once fall into the cliche of big city cops who crack wise and “fight the system.” It is the police, in fact, who provide detail at the end of the film that allow the audience to believe in the alternate reality that Crowe’s character so desperately seeks.
