The Next Three Days Review: How much do you trust the ones you love?

Paul Haggis's new film, The Next Three Days, asks a simple yet complex question: how far would you go to protect someone you love?

John Brennan (Russell Crowe) and Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) are a husband and wife that are deep in love and have a new born son, Luke. The family goes through the morning routine: eating breakfast, taking a picture together, getting ready for the day. Lara finds the coat she wore the night before and notices some blood on the collar. As she is washing the blood out, the police arrive. They come barging in and grab Lara, arresting her for the murder of her boss. Lara spends years in prison as John continues to appeal her case in ever legal venue he can. As the system continues to fail him, he realizes that if he is going to save Lara, he is going to have to take matters into his own hands.

The Next Three Days is a good film that has moments of complete excellence. The scene when Lara learns her appeal was denied is absolutely brilliant. There is no dialogue, just Russell Crowe sitting in a chair, waiting. When he looks Elizabeth Banks in the eyes, all that needs to be said is written on his face and she completely breaks down. It is an absolutely heartbreaking moment that is incredibly well acted and directed. The fallout from that moment is riveting. Watching as Crowe puts together his plan never ceases to be interesting. You're constantly left wondering how far he is willing to go. While the planning of the big escape plan is endlessly fascinating, the execution of the the plan is less so.

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127 Hours Review: A Testament of Will

Danny Boyle used his leverage from his Oscar win for directing Slumdog Millionaire to make 127 Hours, a film the is unconventional in just about every way possible.

127 Hours is based on the true story of Aron Ralston. Ralston is a hiker and canyoneer that stumbled into a crevasse near Moab, Utah where his hand was caught under a boulder. For five days, or 127 hours to be more precise, Ralston was trapped by the boulder before severing his own arm to free himself.

The movie is interesting in its construction in many ways. Aron is a loner, he never told anyone where he was going before venturing out into the wilderness. Therefore, no one was looking for him. So there isn’t any cutting back and forth between Aron and the people trying to save him. Once he gets trapped, we remain with him in the canyon. Very rarely do we leave it. And when we do, it is only in flashbacks to earlier moments in Aron’s life, and only when Aron is thinking about these moments himself. This isn’t Cast Away. There isn’t a whole island to explore. There is just Aron, a rock, and a hard place. And yet it is utterly fascinating to watch.

A lot of this is due to the unexpected tone and style of the film. The movie opens with pumping music and split screens of urban landscapes crawling with people. Already it knocks you off guard from the somber tone you might have been expecting and gives you a film full of kinetic energy. Aron is someone constantly on the move. He times himself on his canyon runs, trying to beat the time listed in the guidebook. The film keeps up with his energy as he runs through the canyon until he is trapped under the boulder. Even then the film doesn’t lose its energy, but expresses it in different ways.

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Monsters Review: A New Kind of Alien Invasion

Monsters is an impressive debut by a new writer and director, Gareth Edwards. The film has great ambitions. That ambition pays off on a technical level, but is less successful from a story perspective.

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within the solar system. They launched a probe to collect samples, but the probe crashed in Mexico upon re-entry. The samples it was carrying quickly took root and began to populate the Mexican jungle, spreading quickly. Soon half of the country has to be quarantined – the Infected Zone. Now there are daily battles between the creatures and the American and Mexican armies. Andrew Kaulder (played by Scoot McNairy) is a photojournalist that is hoping to catch one of these conflicts on film. However, his plans are sidelined when the publication’s owner’s daughter, Sam Wynden (played by Whitney Able) is injured and needs to be brought home. The pair embark on a journey to get Sam home that takes them across Mexico and, ultimately, into the Infected Zone.

The reported budget for this film is $500,000. What’s impressive is that the opening sequence looks like it could have cost half of that. Given the budget, I thought the sightings of the titular monsters would be limited and glimpses at best. That assumption was half-correct. The monsters appearances are limited, but when they show up, they show up. They wreck buildings and toss around trucks.

In the first scene of the movie, a giant squid-like creature engages in combat with the military, smashing buildings and taking gunfire. The effects are quite impressive and look rather good. Edwards cut costs on the film by writing, directing, and shooting the film himself, as well as doing all the visual effects. Through all his efforts he manages to make a film for half a million dollars that looks like it should have cost twenty or thirty million. In addition, the film is beautifully shot, making really good use of the actual exotic and jungle locations that the film was shot in. Edwards creates lots of really grand vista images that show off the destruction of the cities or the vastness of the jungle or the loneliness of the abandoned towns. On a technical level, the film is excellent.


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