Turn on the TV, though, wait a while, and you might just catch one advertising The Next Three Days. It’s filled with the usual people. Smiley, happy people. Shouldn’t you be worried about VAT and jobs and potholes, like the rest of us? I guess not. You’ve got films to watch, cameras to talk to. The thing about this latest advert, however, is that it’s scarily on the money. The Next Three Days is just a good as those pod people proclaim. There are a few too many clichés tossed around (I don’t think anyone is ever “on the edge of” their seat during a thriller, although “it had me leaning forward slightly” doesn’t have quite the same punch), but that’s okay. They’re a good fit here. It’s a far more commercial and mainstream film than Paul Haggis’ last venture as director, In The Valley Of Elah, and the first few minutes have the feel of a standard Hollywood thriller: let’s set up a loving couple, an idyllic home life, then shatter it because we need to get going. Russell Crowe loves his wife, she loves him, but did she really murder that poor woman? Not selling it so far, am I? No wonder I’m never picked for those TV adverts. It was there in full force in Ridley Scott’s good, but kind of inhibited Robin Hood. Crowe seemed so committed to adding a physical presence and fresh take to an iconic character that he forgot, or didn’t have time, to add any humanity. Maybe he was saving it all up for here. State Of Play showed that he could turn the star wattage down and play hangdog. I still remember that great scene where he’s in the apartment block, a bad guy round the corner, and he turns to jelly. Panic overcomes him. For that moment he wasn’t Maximus or an actor who threw a phone at someone. He was a normal guy fearing for his life. There are laughs dotted plentifully around. One, following the film’s special effect blow-out, is a perfectly timed raised hand by Crowe. Yet the film goes to some dark places, and doesn’t always come back from them. If anything, it’s when the movie shifts up a gear into the final third, and that break-out, that it becomes a little strained. Haggis has to rely on some overly-familiar genre tropes, like an FBI man shouting things down a phone as he does them – ‘I‘m running down some stairs! I’m near a subway.’- or a too clever for his own good policeman and his slightly disbelieving partner (although he may have come up with that in Due South, so let’s forgive him that one). It pulls it back for a nice (for Haggis read dark) climax, and actually makes good use of a Moby song before that. It also brings Brian Dennehy back to the big screen, giving him an emotional humdinger of a scene with just a few words. Don’t let those adverts put you off. The Next Three Days is far better than its advertising campaign. The Next Three Days is in UK cinemas from today, January 5th.
