(review re-posted as the film is in U.K. theatres from today) The latest from Academy Award winning Crash scribe Paul Haggis, The Next Three Days is a remake of the 2008 French film Pour Elle (released over here last year as Anything For Her). Like the original, the film sees an everyday, middle-class, law abiding citizen descend into a world of seedy criminality after his wife is accused of a murder he is certain she did not commit. After losing the final legal appeal against his wifes life sentence, school teacher John Brennan (Russell Crowe) resolves to take the law into his own hands and break his wife (Elizabeth Banks) out of a maximum security prison, or else face a joyless future without his love and the mother of his young son. To make matters more urgent, Brennan has to pull off this audacious escape bid within the titular three days before his wife is moved to another facility. The original film was a taught and gripping thriller which was solidly entertaining and Haggis film is at least its equal in this regard albeit without as many troubling ethnic stereotypes. Made with clear respect for the French film, The Next Three Days is often shot-for-shot and the films colour palette is similar too. And whilst the action has shifted from France to the US (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), many of the locations seem to have been selected based on their similarity to those seen in the original film. The remake still plays on the same cynical distrust of the law, it still extols the same dubious right-wing eye-for-an-eye morality and it is still ultimately as involving: playing as it does on emotionally resonant themes, such as the heartbreaking idea of being indefinitely separated from your loved ones. For the emotional pull of The Next Three Days to work and it largely does it is vital that we feel Crowes pain and empathise with his extreme course of increasingly violent action. Thankfully for Haggis, this is Crowe at his most sympathetic and affecting since his masterful turn in The Insider and his actions, though preposterous, seem more motivated by fear (and possibly deteriorating mental health) than revenge as is the case in such films as Taken, Harry Brown or the original Death Wish. When he isnt in full-on mumbling-on-horseback mode Crowe has a genuine everyman quality. A more convincingly proletarian hero than his French counterpart Vincent Lindon, Crowe actually elevates this material. Meanwhile, even though Elizabeth Banks has the thankless task of stepping into a role previously played by Diane Kruger she is similarly effective and gives her role some real emotional weight. But just because The Next Three Days is (for better or worse) so faithful to both the spirit and the form of the original, it is not to say that Haggis hasnt added anything of his own to the mix. The film makes great use of a major US city as its location, with post-911 security policies referenced as a way to make Brennans escape all the more difficult and exciting. If the events leading up to the break-out are ripped wholesale from the original film, then the escape from the city is where the films Hollywood makeover begins to be felt the keenest, as a full scale security clampdown quickly takes effect. An impactful cameo from Liam Neeson (as an ex-con who teaches Crowes character about the principles of escaping prison) introduces a step-by-step account of what will happen and when during the escape, which again adds a tension building time-based pressure to the escape. Unlike its Gallic cousin, The Next Three Days often breaks the tension with moments of humour. This could easily have been a little too cheesy, but Crowe is down to earth enough here that these moments actually have a little charm and go some way towards ensuring the movie doesnt become tiresomely earnest. Where the American remake does get a little silly, however, is during the final chase sequences where there are some positively ludicrous stunts and some dubious CGI which break the realism of the piece considerably as it all threatens to go a bit Tony Scott. But with such a well orchestrated balance between tension, thrills and drama, The Next Three Days just about survives these potentially shark-jumping moments and comes out the other side more or less in tact. As mentioned, there is an unseemly right-wing morality to the film that I find uncomfortable. Early on in the movie Crowes son tells his dad that he had been bullied at school. Did you hit him? dad asks. Yeah says the boy. Good affirms dad. As in many American films and as mirrored by US foreign policy violence is best met with violence. In a key scene later in the movie, Crowe will learn the same lesson back from his son: he needs to hit back at the system that has let him down. This kick starts his sociopathic assault on a broken society whose laws need no longer apply. But whilst this message survives from the source text, The Next Three Days does at least suggest it is a path which ultimately leads to self-destruction. When asked how the authorities eventually recaptured Neeson he replies that he simply turned himself in. I couldnt live with the thought that any second somebody could kick down the door. This sentiment is perhaps undermined by the films eventual resolution with an ending similar to Spielbergs Munich perhaps a more interesting and appropriate choice but at least Haggis accepts a more complicated idea of morality than the original films writer/director Fred Cavayé. The Next Three Days is a solid thriller that does exactly what it sets out to. At its best it works as an emotional and adrenaline thrill ride, with decent performances and an emotional core which does a good job of playing on a number of universal fears (family under threat; miscarriage of justice; ordinary person out of their depth). Whether or not it will live long in the memory is another thing entirely, as there is nothing particularly unique or stand-out about the film, but whilst youre watching it its certainly entertaining and one of the years best straight thrillers. Crowes central performance and Haggis improved screenplay make this one remake which is actually a bit better than the original, though so much of the films style and substance is so close to Cavayés original that much of its success should still be attributed to him. The Next Three Days is released in the U.S. on Friday 19th November but not until January 5th in the U.K.www.facebook.com/thenextthreedaysuk