After a few years of bad media coverage and some rather unlikeable performances (culminating in the craptacular borefest of Robin Hood last year) Russell Crowe returns showing some rather uncharacteristic warmth in The Next Three Days.
Irritatingly, the film is a less enjoyable, less surprising experience as serial writer/director/ham Paul Haggis stretches believability to the point that your brain will dribble out your ears in protest. And to save any more suffering, you'll encourage it to continue.
Crowe plays a family man and a literature professor trying to break his woman out of jail. She may or may not have murdered one of her rather annoying friends, but reality is of little importance to the crusading Crowe. He shows that someone from a form of skills non-specific academia can fashion explosive devices, find fatal flaws in the US prison system and manage to cleverly evade the cops on more than one occasion. Pass the tissue, that was a bit of my cerebral cortex.
That said, the climax is muscle-botheringly tense and my interest rarely waned throughout the movie. You even get a blustering, slathering cameo from a chain-smoking Liam Neeson injected into the mix. It epitomises the film – it's completely overbearing, barely believable and is prone to spouting clangers. But it's fun and diverting. You could do worse.
