Consider yourself an every day type of person? If you’re married, how well do you really know your spouse? Beyond every shadow of any doubt? And just far would you go to save her/him from a gross miscarriage of justice, after every legal recourse has failed? Could you forsake all of your worldly possessions? Would you be willing to leave behind your one and only old child, a six year old, as part of the price of freedom? Willing to risk being shot on sight? What about always wondering if law enforcement is going to kick down your door in the middle of the night? Going on the run requires money and money always runs out when on the run.
Can you live with ‘all’ of that? If you can’t…
All of the above fueled the well received 2008 French crime thriller, Anything for Her, the directorial debut of screenwriter Fred Cavayé. Paul Haggis’ The Next Three Days is the American remake, trading Paris/Europe for Pittsburgh/North America — and Cavayé is very pleased by all of that.
Three years. That’s the time interval over which Russell Crowe’s sheepish, straight arrow, community college English lit professor, John Brennan, has to reckon with his wife Lara’s (Elizabeth Banks) sudden arrest and quick conviction for the brutal parking lot murder of her boss. In the absence of new evidence, every viable avenue of appeal is now exhausted. The pace of the film in this section is deliberately slow, like a wet fuse that threatens to quit with every sputter, provoking the patience of some audience members, in the same way that these three years have worn down John, Lara and their six year old son Luke.
Three weeks. Facing life in prison without possibility of parole, Lara attempts suicide. Failing that, she chides John for never once having asked her if she committed the crime, strongly implying that his steadfast belief in her innocence is wrong. It’s a startling, hardboiled moment. John rocks Lara to the verge of tears with a fiercely gentle insistence that he knows her far better than that. Then he calmly promises her that the rest of her life won’t be spent in prison. John means it and that ignites a second, measured fuse of searching, plotting, tinkering and flailing to get her out, by any means necessary.
Three days. Seventy-two hours notice is given that Lara is to be moved out of county lockup to a remote state prison. All of John’s site-specific preparations to spring Lara are about to go up in smoke. Heaping measures of white-hot desperation and sheer dumb luck fuel a now go-for-broke, chutes-and-ladders prison break action/thriller.
Obtaining run money, forged passports, drivers licenses and credit-worthy stolen identities are beyond the grasp of mild manners. There’s no more time for any more half-measures. Will they or won’t they beat the 15/35 minute municipal lockdown perimeters? Will Luke be left behind? Will they get away or will they be caught? Even if you think you know, you never know just how.
In the Three Weeks section, John’s Internet searches lead him to Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), an author who has written a book about his experience escaping from prison seven times. In the French original, Pennington’s counterpart becomes a directly engaged mentor to the protagonist for an extended portion of the story. Director/writer Haggis boils the role down to a single, compelling scene, in which Neeson’s Pennington primes Crowe’s John for what will be an arduous and profoundly solitary quest to become a desperately competent escape artist. Neesom sells it without resorting to any Obi-Wan Kenobi/Yoda/Qui-Gon artifice, and then he is gone.
At points, the film threatens to lose it’s way over YouTube-for-Dummies tutorials on bump keys and tennis ball pneumatic plungers, but then quickly reestablishes a coherent context in the service of story. (It’s a minor blessing that the bump key prominently shown on screen isn’t fit for real-world duty.) Haggis’ emphasis is on John’s native intelligence and his refusal to engage any co-conspirators (not even Lara). John’s fallibility, desperation and nagging decency (when escrow on the family home won’t close in time, he can’t bring himself to rob a bank) all work against, as much as for, Lara’s and his own sake. The psychological wear and tear of John’s solitary second life all plays up to a poignant father-son scene, between Brian Dennehy and Crowe, that can be taken either way as slip-up or shrewd intention.
Yes, there are a few almost unbelievable moments, but cleverness and luck are the deciding factors here, just as they sometimes are in real life.
The success or failure of tN3D as entertainment depends entirely on three things, all of them acting, Crowe and Banks and the supporting cast filling out the seriously tenacious law enforcement roles.
None of the smart intricacies of Haggis’ script work without the uniformly excellent contributions of all the actors, particularly Crowe, who carries the film with the tenacity of a gladiator, while relying mostly on the finer muscles of intimate character acting. Banks encapsulates a woman’s who is always tough to love, but who is all the more to be loved for it, even when she’s totally glammed down. Lara’s got a tough exterior, but, inside, she’s on the brink of quitting.
Danny Elfman’s score is beautifully restrained and subtle, too. I had no idea it was his work until I saw the end credits.
Haggis makes quite a living out of polishing the scripts of other writers that somehow got greenlit despite being turds. This remake is completely able to stand on its own, as well as stand in good comparison with the French original. Cavayé is quoted as saying that he is honored by Haggis and can’t wait to see tN3D himself. How often does that happen?
I’m glad I caught this one. It’s very good entertainment.
jurgen section 15,
how did jürgen know cole was section15,
jurgen know that cole was section 15,
malvern bump,
the gray credit scene,
who was the real damon pennington
As you’d expect, “Man on a Ledge” is a Swiss-cheese plotted heist and “prove his innocence” movie but taken as just that, it’s quite an enjoyable movie. I suppose after having seen enough of these kinds of movies, I shouldn’t expect perfection in how every plot thread is tied up since very few movies manage it. However, what the movie does excellently is setup the plot and build up the situation perfectly. Just starting as a literal man on a ledge, we see subtle layers added until we get this full on crescendo of diamond heists, negotiators, cops, convicts, bad guys, good guys all happening on in a single block in New York. So, given that you’re willing to suppress your tingling plot-hole sense, it can be an enjoyable movie.
