Preview - THE NEXT THREE DAYS

THE NEXT THREE DAYS is a faithful remake of Fred Cafave's French thriller, POUR ELLE / ANYTHING FOR HER. It has been remade by the American writer/director Paul Haggis, famous for scripts and films that are, to my mind, over-long, over-elaborate, over-technical and lacking in real emotion. Unfortunately, THE NEXT THREE DAYS is no exception.

Russell Crowe stars as a schlubby loser who loves his wife and little kid. So, when she's locked up for apparently murdering her boss in a fit of rage, he's devastated. When the conventional legal channels are exhausted, and his despairing wife attempts suicide, poor Schlub has no choice but to plan a prison break-out. Apparently, this is quite easy. You interview a guy who's already written books how to do it; watch a couple of YouTube How To videos; and while you are basically a good guy, you discover hidden physical strengths. These include the ability to a) cold-bloodedly murder some drug-dealers b) drive a car at high speed in on-coming traffic and c) hold on to your wife while your car performs a triple lutz with its door open.

As you might tell from my facetious tone, I wasn't any more convinced of the reality of this film any more than I was by the original. In both versions, the film-makers attempts to ground the movie in reality with a detailed slow-build of research before the prison break fails to do its job. And while Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks are just fine in their roles, the basic concept is simply too incredible to buy into.

Worst still, Paul Haggis direction and script adaptation contrives to bring us out of the film rather than keep us in it. For instance, why make the guy who sells Schlub fake passports deaf? I have nothing against deaf people, but when the actor playing him first spoke you could hear the audience wondering what was going on, (some of them tittering - shame on them) and it was a distraction. Another example is where Schlub has done something bad but then counters by doing something that's meant to be sympathetic. But as his car pulls away and we still the shot of what he's done, it's just plain funny. The audience in my preview screening laughed AT the movie, rather than being impressed by the emotional confusion of the protagonist. Third Paul Haggis does his typical thing of dumbing everything down. Why does he need to play a childish game, teasing us with whether or not the wife really did murder her boss? At least the French flick had the maturity to make that a non-issue. And finally, this movie has more endings than LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING.

Overall, dull, banal, incredible (literally), and while decently acted, utterly forgettable. Save your money, save your time.

THE NEXT THREE DAYS is on release in the US, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, Poland, Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore, Bulgaria, Finland, Norway and the Philippines. It opens next weekend in France, Greece and the Netherlands. It opens on December 24th in Brazil; on January 7th in the UK; on January 20th in Germany and Hungary.

ANYTHING FOR HER / POUR ELLE - Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together

French writer-director Fred Cavaye's ANYTHING FOR HER has been much-praised for its original take on the prison-break-out movie. Cavaye doesn't bother teasing the audience with whether or not the young mother is really guilty of murdering her boss - her innocence is established up-front. Nor are there any typical suspicions of infidelity - she and her husband are clearly in love and they have a supportive family. Neither do we have a break-out masterminded by slick, omniscient gangsters. Rather, Cavaye's protagonist is a middle-aged, naive school-teacher, who accepts that his wife is innocent, doesn't think he can prove her innocent, and wants to break her out of prison and escape overseas. The viewer-interest should reside in seeing this ordinary man grapple with the complexity of planning a successful break-out - in other words, one that doesn't involve being caught the next day. Unfortunately, the concept of the movie collapses in on itself. Because, as a seasoned criminal explains to the protagonist early in the film, successful break-outs aren't for amateurs - they need careful planning, a lot of money, and a lot of luck. This leads Cavaye into a screen-writer's quandary. In order to be authentic to his concept, his protagonist but whimper and fail. But, in order to create an action-filled thriller, his protagonist must behave exactly like the trained criminal that he isn't. That Cavaye can't decide is summed up in a pivotal scene where the desperate man holds up a drug-dealer but then rescues the pusher. I felt it neatly summed up the muddled thinking at the centre of this otherwise technically well made, but literally incredible, film. It will be interesting to see what Paul Haggis makes of the paradox in his English-language remake.

POUR ELLE was released in France and Belgium last year. It is currently on release in Sweden, Turkey and the UK. It opens in Finland on July 3rd.