I'm a card carrying member of the
Crash haters club and Lord knows I've denounced
Paul Haggis as a unsubtle, politically motivated, hack screenwriter/director for years now - but - I gotta hand it to him,
The Next Three Days looks like a killer movie. But then it plays on the senses that I love about cinema. There's always been something in me that has a fancy for chase movies, the pure simplicity of the ramped up situation where a movie focuses on one guy (who we don't particularly care for what he has done) who knows his life will be over if he gets caught. I love
The Getaway,
The Great Escape - hell even the Charlie Sheen's
The Chase that would re-run on British t.v. every now and again in the 90's. I think I've always had that Hitchcock thing of being terrified of the police, of losing one's freedom, of being locked up. Is it the
Grand Theft Auto video-game era that has done this to me, or those late night police chase shows where you naturally have an affinity towards the one being chased, in that case the criminal - I don't know. But I know I like this.
Russell Crowe is perfectly cast and I've always been a big fan of
Elizabeth Banks and this dramatic character might test her like no other. The movie is a remake of the 2008 French tiller
Pour Elle, which I absolutely now have to explore and although the trailer hints at Haggis' unsubtle button being pushed again (the end shot for one), I'm still planning to catch this one when it opens (November in the U.S, elsewhere unknown).