US remake of French legal thriller Anything For Her, from director Paul Haggis (Crash, In The Valley of Elah) and starring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson.
John (Crowe) and Laura (Banks) are married with a kid, living the dream. Their idyll is shattered when police turn up on the doorstep and arrest Laura for murder. She is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. John is convinced of her innocence and, with no legal options left, plots a daring plan to break her out of prison.
There’s a beautiful moment during the climax of Paul Haggis’s jailbreak flick, adapted from the French film Anything For Her. During their escape, Crowe and Banks have gone so far off-plan, they just sit by the roadside for a minute and stare into space, waiting for it all to be over. You’ll know how they feel. Although capably assembled by Hollywood vets Haggis, Crowe and co, this is an exercise in sustained preposterousness.
In order to bust his wife out of jail for a crime she may not have committed (cue A-Team music), Crowe learns rudimentary locksmithery from YouTube, takes down a meth lab single-handedly and interrogates master escape artist Liam Neeson over coffee. But the resulting scheme (essentially hit it and hope) is so unlikely, he might have been better to watch The Shawshank Redemption while cracking a few beers.
Although their plight is moving – "I know who you are," promises Crowe as Banks repeatedly rejects him for his own good – and the lengthy escape sequence tense and ambitious, to suspend this much belief we’d have to love these characters, and we never do. Shawshank’s Andy Dufresne earned his freedom with 17 years of patience and cunning, if he’d merely watched a few internet clips and waved a pistol around it might have been a different matter.
From Crowe’s Big Man Acting to Haggis’s vain attempts to tie up every single loose end (hence the bloated running time), this is a film of overwhelming solidity, a muscular, serious thriller that would have worked better as a slim, silly one.
By Matt Glasby, Flicks.co.nz
I loved the French movie 'Pour Elle' ('Anything For Her,' 2008) - a superb example of taut scripting, understated acting from Vincent Lindon and Diane Kruger and superlative direction from Fred Cavaye. So why the US remake? Why indeed. Paul Haggis (who previously helmed 'Crash') makes a fair go of it, but the script fails to transplant the French movie to America because, oddly enough, it sticks too close to the original screenplay on which it is based. Bold changes in the manner made by Scorsese's 'Departed' (a remake of Hong Kong movie, 'Infernal Affairs.') The other problem is the lead. No way do you believe even for a nanosecond that Russell Crowe is an average Joe, a teacher no less, who will do what it takes to spring his falsely accused Mrs (Elizabeth Banks) from jail, where she grows more and more depressed and suicidal - kept apart from her child and serving a life-sentence for murder. Crowe and Banks are just too Hollywood to bring it off. As a result - there's no tension. Zip. Nada. Niet. Liam Neeson, RZA and the wondrous Brian Dennehy pop up in minor roles, but all have precious little to do. Crowe hogs the limelight and as a result simply drains any tension out of every scene. His performance is earnest and the director tries to "keep it real," but the whole situation comes across as so preposterous that it just ends up an annoying shadow of it's French original. Do yourself a favour, give this a wide berth and catch 'Anything For Her' instead. Vincent Lindon's performance blows Crowe out of the cinema and into the next bloated over-the-top Ridley Scott historical epic disappointment - where he belongs.
I watch a lot of movies, and this is one of the best I've seen in a while. Great acting, unique story. Keeps you guessing right till the end.
Starts off a bit silly in places, but then gets really good.
Nowadays, Hollywood excels in "borrowing" ideas from Europe or other areas. While they are not hiding it with "The Next Three Days", other Directors were less prompt to communicate the source of "their" brilliant script. One example comes to mind: "Lars and the Real Girl" (2007) which was tagged as many critics as an original idea but was nothing more but a childish remake of the brilliant "Monique" (2002) by Valerie Guignabodet. Two or three years ago the Hollywood script writers went on a long strike, is there any proof that they have actually returned to work since then?
Another US remake from an excellent French movie "Pour elle" (Anything for Her), proof that the US market is culturally starved and clueless.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 7th Apr 2011.
Release date: April 7th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
