The Next Three Days

The film “The Next Three Days,” directed by Paul Haggis, is a somewhat entertaining film with an excellent cast. It stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, and Ty Simpkins.
The film starts out at a dinner with John (Crowe), Lara (Banks), and John’s brother and girlfriend. The two girls are having an argument, and soon each couple starts heading home. The next morning, Lara is taken away by the police for the murder of her boss. She is later found guilty, which leaves John and their son Luke (Simpkins) by themselves. The film jumps a few years into the future, where Luke and John continue to visit Lara. John can’t fight to get his wife out of prison the legal way, so he starts to planning on how to break her out and all escape to a different country.
What was good about this film was the acting. Russell Crowe is an amazing actor, and he portrayed the character John really well. This can be seen when he tests out a key inside the prison and fails. I was also very impressed with Elizabeth Banks performance; she does well outside of comedy. This can be seen when she first gets arrested, as well as when Russell Crowe goes to visit her in prison to tell her that he can’t help her anymore.
The bad thing about the film is the plot; audiences can watch only so much of the planning. The movie starts to drag because all the audience sees is planning and planning, like when John starts putting a map on his wall and does his research on “YouTube.” The idea of the film was also great, but unsuccessful. Films about escaping prison are usually good, but this film showed it in a way that would dull the audience; it’s the way not to do it. There were a few instances where the planning was good, like when interviews Liam Neeson’s character Damon Pennington for all the information on escaping prison and when the plan actually starts. There weren’t enough interesting or entertaining scenes to really grab the audience.
“The Next Three Days” could have been a successful film, if the plot was more interesting. No one really wants to see a film about someone coming up with a plan the entire time. Overall, the film wasn’t good, but it had potential.

The Next Three Days and The Shawshank Redemption

The films “The Next Three Days” and “The Shawshank Redemption” are films about prison breaks. The films have similar ideas, in different time periods, but one film is more successful than the other in portraying the story.
Both films have the same idea of escaping prison. There’s a lot of planning that important in these films; it’s all that “The Next Three Days” is about. The men are the ones who do all the planning. They both consist of the innocent persons becoming convicted felons, but later escape; one on his own accord and the other because of her husband.
The reason “The Shawshank Redemption” is more successful than “The Next Three Days” is the element of surprise. You have no idea that Andy has any intention to actually escape; the audience doesn’t find out until around the last twenty minutes of the film. The film is more interesting because it’s the story behind bars, instead of the world we already know. Also, Andy doesn’t give in and let the prison rule his life, like Elizabeth Bank’s character Lara. She lets herself become weak and even admits to her husband that she’s not innocent, when she is; Andy doesn’t let this happen to him, and he even stands up to the warden.
Both “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Next Three Days” have the same basic idea as films. The greatest difference and determining factor of success is that “The Next Three Days” is more about the planning aspect, whereas “Shawshank Redemption” has an inside look on prison-life, where the prisoner is the motivated one.