The Next Three Days – Starring Russell Crowe

The Next Three Days (2010)  Directed by Paul Haggis (as screenwriter: Million Dollar Baby (2004), Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima and Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), and as screenwriter and director: Crash (2004), In the Valley of Elah (2007)), starring Russell Crowe (Gladiator (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), American Gangster (2007), State of Play (2009)) and Elizabeth Banks.  In this thriller, directed by the talented writer-director Paul Haggis, Russell Crowe portrays a junior college English teacher who frees his perhaps erroneously convicted wife from jail.  As good as Crowe can be, however, is just not good enough to redeem The Next Three Days, unfortunately.  The film is slow, at best uneven, with many logical holes, loose ends and poor character development.  The premise of a normal guy pushed to extremes can be very interesting indeed, however, in The Next Three Days, and despite Crowe, Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List (1993), Chloe (2009)) in a very brief scene, as an American ex-con turned author, and a writer-director of Haggis’ caliber, the end result is truly a disappointment. (PR)

See our posts on the films In the Valley of Elah, written and directed by Paul Haggis, and American Gangster and State of Play starring Russell Crowe, as well as our post on the film Chloe, starring Liam Neeson.

We recommend that you buy your DVDs and Blu-ray Disks.  Have a great personal film library..  Here are links to amazon.com (Amazon Instant Video, DVDs and Blu-ray Disks, in that order, when available):

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In the Valley of Elah – Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron & Susan Sarandon

In the Valley of Elah (2007)(DVD)  Written and directed by Paul Haggis (as screenwriter, Million Dollar Baby (2004), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008)), starring Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive (1993), The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), No Country for Old Men (2007) and many others), Charlize Theron (Monster (2003), North Country (2005), Hancock (2008), The Burning Plain (2009), The Road (2009)), Susan Sarandon (The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Thelma & Louise (1991), The Lovely Bones (2009), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men (2007), W. (2008), Milk (2008), True Grit (2010)) and others.  In the Valley of Elah, a somber, complex and powerful film, portrays a veteran and father’s search for the murderers of his soldier son, and deals with issues such as the war in Iraq, post-traumatic stress disorder, racism, misogyny, and violence.  Tommy Lee Jones is excellent, rigid, harsh, cold, determined, Charlize Theron, as a police detective, is equally good, sober, human, perseverant, overwhelmed.  Susan Sarandon, in a smaller role, as the wife of Jones’s character and mother of the murdered soldier is very good, detached, distraught, lost; Josh Brolin, in a very small role as Theron’s character’s police superior, is, if briefly, perfect.  In the Valley of Elah is not an easy film, and includes some graphic, gruesome scenes in its portrait of alienated, morally lost Americans. (PR)

See our posts on the films The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and No Country for Old Men, with Tommy Lee Jones, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, with Susan Sarandon.

We recommend that you buy your DVDs and Blu-ray Disks.  Have a great personal film library..  Here are links to amazon.com:

top image:  Wikipedia

nothingisinvisible@live.fr