The Next Three Days

The pacing was probably the best thing of this thriller.

An ordinary man (played by Russell Crowe, another great performance--sorry I can't be objective about him) founds himself pushed to his limits and beyond when his wife (Elizabeth Banks) is arrested for murder and is sentenced to spend 20 years in jail.

I'm not familiar with the original French movie that inspired Paul Haggis to write The Next Three Days, so I can't make any comparison.

One thing that confused me in the middle of the plot and the action is the character played by Lennie James. He's Lieutenant Nabulsi and he seems to be a psychic, when he immediately puts the pieces of the puzzle together and knows exactly what Russell is going to do and how.

We're talking about Sherlock Holmes on speed, without Watson's help.

The most confusing thing for me was that his character was not introduced at all in the first part of the movie.

There's a couple of detectives already on the case, they are the ones that entered the house and arrested Elizabeth Banks.

One of them also noticed Russell outside the prison, throwing up and naturally you'd think they will be the ones going after Russell and Elizabeth once they get on the run, but no.

Why?

Out of the blue, here comes Lennie James. Another detective in the mix.

Overall I enjoyed the film, the cast is great and I like Paul Haggis's writing and style. I know some people hated Crash, some loved In the Valley of Elah and almost everybody loved Casino Royale, as for me I just like the guy.

One of the twist I liked is the location of the birthday party.

Russell believes it's going to be at Olivia Wilde's house ("13" from House) and when he goes there with his wife to run away and escape the road blocks and the police... BANG!

No one is at the house, if I remember correctly they all went to the Zoo. The image of the Aquarium with Russell running out of time looking for his son is really beautiful.

At the end, we finally see what really happened the night of the murder Elizabeth is accused of, (can't ruin the film for you now) not completely a surprise but I think it would have worked much better if the detective putting together the pieces of the murder mystery was also the same one running after them.

I honestly have no idea what function the extra detective character plays in the movie.