The Next Three Days: Blu-ray (2010)

What would you do if your wife was arrested for murder, had overwhelming evidence against her and even though you truly believed she was innocent, it looked like she was spending her life in prison? Would you try to break her out? Accept the fact that the justice system is flawed? Get yourself a hottie mistress? These are the questions asked (albeit very superficially) in Paul Haggis' The Next Three Days.

Fist the good; there are a lot of talented people involved in The Next Three Days. Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) is a very good writer and a good director who shows that he can make an action scene pop here. Russell Crowe and Elisabeth Banks both give strong performances and the supporting cast has a lot of familiar and talented faces that briefly pop up throughout the film (Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy, Olivia Wilde, Daniel Stern, Kevin Corrigan, RZA). The movie starts out asking some important questions and gives us some very strong characterizations. Crowe's descent into criminality and a willingness to do whatever it takes to get his wife out of jail is intriguing.

Now the bad; while the first half of the movie features that strong character work, it ultimately descends into generic action-thriller territory. Suspension of disbelief is a giant plus to have when watching The Next Three Days. There are quite simply numerous highly implausible situations that constantly stack on top of each other. There's also the issue of runtime. 132 minutes is just too long to sustain the tension required for the film to work really well without a strong character focus in the second half. The Next Three Days really could have been both a strong character piece and a sweet action film but it settles for a good but not great version of each.

As expected of a new release film the blu-ray quality is excellent. Visuals are very strong, with a great amount of detail, excellent black levels, and a consistent color scheme. There are no complaints with the The Next Three Days video quality. Likewise the audio track is top notch. Dialogue is always balanced, surround usage is constant but not overwhelmingly so and there's enough low end to shake the walls when the movie calls for it.

There's a lot to like about The Next Three Days. The cast is great and the action sequences are engrossing. Ultimately the film fails to deliver on the character aspects that are so promising in the first half of the movie and there's a lot of implausibility in the story. The Next Three Days is surely good enough for a rental but with the talent involved in the film, it's a slight disappointment.

Ratings:

Movie: 3.5
Blu-ray: 4.5