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The Next Three Days
Life seems perfect for John Brennan until his wife, Lara, is arrested for a murder she says she didn’t commit. Three years into her sentence, John is struggling to hold his family together, raising their son and teaching at college while he pursues every means available to prove her innocence. With the rejection of their final appeal, Lara becomes suicidal and John decides there is only one possible, bearable solution: to break his wife out of prison.
2010 · Directed by Paul Haggis · 133 min · Romance · Drama · Thriller · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 7 frames
Tagline
What if you had 72 hours to save everything you live for?
Plot
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lara Brennan is sentenced to life in prison for murder. Three years later, her young son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits, despite the efforts of her husband John. Following the failure of Lara's appeal, her lawyer urges John to accept the evidence: after a public fight with her boss, Lara was seen leaving the parking lot where her boss was bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher; though Lara claims to have bumped into the real suspect, her fingerprints were on the murder weapon and the victim's blood was found on her coat. Out of legal options, Lara attempts suicide, and John becomes determined to break her out of prison.
John consults former inmate Damon Pennington, who wrote a book about his seven prison escapes, and makes the necessary preparations over the next three months, studying the routines inside Allegheny County Jail. Attempting to buy fake passports from a drug dealer, he is directed to a bar where he is instead beaten and robbed by the dealer and his friend. A deaf motorcyclist from the bar later sells him the forged documents for $3,700, and John buys a handgun. Nearly caught testing a bump key inside the jail, a panicked John is seen vomiting outside by the detectives who arrested Lara; they follow him home, suspicious that he has sold the house and other assets. John learns how to break into the van for the medical lab that conducts Lara's diabetes tests.
Learning that Lara will be transferred to a high-security prison in three days, John is unable to close the house sale in time and prepares to rob a bank, but cannot go through with it, and nearly runs over a mother and her child in his stress. A visit with Lara leads to an argument and, in a fit of quiet rage, she declares she is guilty, but John refuses to believe her. He tails a local drug dealer to a meth lab, setting fire to the building and taking the cash at gunpoint, but a shoot-out leaves one of the criminals dead and a second wounded. John breaks his tail light as he drives the wounded dealer to a hospital, but the man bleeds out and dies, so John leaves his body at a bus stop. John's father finds his plane tickets and realizes his plan, and they share a final goodbye.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Paul Haggis
- Cinematography: Stéphane Fontaine
- Edited by: Jo Francis
- Music: Danny Elfman
- Production design: Laurence Bennett
- Produced by: Olivier Delbosc, Paul Haggis, Marc Missonnier, Michael Nozik
Cast
- Russell Crowe as John Brennan
- Elizabeth Banks as Lara Brennan
- Ty Simpkins as Luke Brennan
- Brian Dennehy as George Brennan
- Helen Carey as Grace Brennan
- Olivia Wilde as Nicole
- Daniel Stern as Meyer Fisk
- Jason Beghe as Detective Quinn
- Aisha Hinds as Detective Collero
- Michael Buie as Mick Brennan
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Hwy61, Lionsgate
- Budget: $30,000,000
- Box office: $67,448,651
- Themes: homicide, falsely accused, women's prison, murder, jail, suicidal, female prisoner, prison visit, single father, appeal
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