百年50部英文燒腦電影賞析:[47]The Next Three Days 危情三日

Lara Brennan（Elizabeth Banks）is convicted of murdering her boss after an altercation at work and after a trial is sentenced to life in prison. Following the failure of her appeal, Lara's husband John Brennan（Russell Crowe），a professor at a community college, becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her out of jail, while their son Luke（Ty Simpkins）ceases to acknowledge her during their prison visits. John consults Damon Pennington（Liam Neeson）, a former convict who successfully escaped from prison seven times. Damon advises John to study the prison where his wife is, saying “every prison has a key”. Damon also warns him that the initial escape from the prison will be easy compared with avoiding capture after the escape. To that end, John must obtain false passports, new social security numbers, and a “truckload of cash” to have a chance of success. Damon also suggests going to an unpopular foreign country for Americans so that authorities will be unlikely to look for them there. John learns Pittsburgh's time to lock-down the city's exits after a call is made to do so: 15 minutes for the city center and 35 minutes for all interstates, secondary roads, and stations or airports. Damon Pennington tells John to ask himself if he can really “be that guy” who knocks over an old lady or shoots a guard if it's the difference between escape or getting caught.
John contemplates several ideas that do not pan out and is defeated more than once, but he latches onto a solid plan and the necessary paperwork after some painful efforts. He robs a drug lord and sets his meth lab on fire before fleeing the scene. He then falsifies and plants blood work results indicating that his wife is in a state of hyperkalaemia, so she is transferred to the hospital. He follows the ambulance and helps her escape although she is doubtful and reluctant, motivated only by the idea of her son being raised without either parent.
With the police getting some lucky breaks, they are hot on John and Lara's trail through a series of chases. Throughout the film, John is shown assembling maps, photographs, notes, and other papers on a wall of his house, He tears them down and stuffs them into several garbage bags before leaving to rescue Lara, leaving one bag in the trash outside his home, and the rest in a dumpster some blocks away. As it turns out, he did this selectively to misguide the detectives regarding their final destination. They have an uncomfortable moment at passport control, as a Canadian officer examines their passports and glances at the page of photographs showing people to stop. He allows them to pass. The shift changes, and as they walk down the hall, their photos are added to the list. An international flight is delayed, but the police were after the wrong destination.
At the end of the film, the family ends up safe in Caracas, Venezuela. Back in the United States, a detective who had attempted to catch Brennan returns to the scene of the crime although it had been some years since the crime occurred. Using his forensic skills, he manages to put together what really happened. It turns out that the killer of Lara's boss was really just a mugger—as she claimed in open court—and a series of coincidences led to Lara's conviction. He remembers Lara saying a button popped off as she passed the mugger, and notices that it is raining just as it had been the night of the murder He tosses a piece of paper in the current where the button would have fallen off, and it leads into a gutter. He searches the gutter but is unable to find the button to prove Lara's innocence. It turns out the button was there, buried under grime, and the detective just missed it. The last shot of this detective shows him turning back to think, implying that there is a possibility of him taking a second look and locating the button, which would've led to the exoneration of Lara. However, that is left open to audience speculation.
勞拉·布倫南（伊麗莎白·班克斯飾）被指控由于工作中的摩擦而謀殺了她的老板，庭審后被判無期徒刑。上訴被駁回后，勞拉身為社區(qū)大學教授的丈夫約翰·布倫南（羅素·克勞飾）卻幻想著幫助她越獄，而他們的兒子盧克（泰·辛普金斯飾）卻在監(jiān)獄探視時不再認她這個媽媽了。
約翰向達蒙·彭寧頓（連姆·尼森飾）這位曾經(jīng)蒙冤，并七次成功越獄的過來人求教。達蒙建議約翰仔細觀察她妻子所在的監(jiān)獄，并說每個監(jiān)獄都有“一把鑰匙”。達蒙還告誡他逃出監(jiān)獄不算難，但難的是逃出后不被抓住。最后，最重要的是，約翰還必須弄到假護照、新的社會保險賬號和大量的現(xiàn)金才能提高成功率。達蒙還建議最好選一個美國人不關(guān)注的國家，這樣當局就不會去那種地方找他們。約翰了解到匹茲堡在收到通知到關(guān)閉各城市間通道的時間間隔：城中心是15分鐘，各州間、二級公路和車站機場是35分鐘。達蒙·彭寧頓讓約翰在行動前，先問問自己是否愿意成為一個“打倒老婦人或射殺保安”的暴徒，逃跑和被追捕之間是否不同。

約翰苦思冥想，想出了幾個辦法，卻都沒有敲定，他一次次地推翻重來，但幾經(jīng)努力，他最終鎖定了一個周詳?shù)挠媱澆蕚淞吮匾奈募Ｋ麚尳倭艘粋€毒梟并在離開現(xiàn)場前，放火燒了那兒的毒品實驗室。然后，他偽造了一份血液檢測報告證明她妻子有高血糖癥，這樣她將會被移送到醫(yī)院，他就可以尾隨救護車，并伺機幫她逃跑。雖然她妻子疑慮重重、極不情愿，但為了不讓他們的孩子在沒有父母照料的環(huán)境下長大，她還是同意了他的計劃。
由于幸運，警察經(jīng)過一系列的追蹤，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)了約翰和勞拉的行蹤線索。在影片中，約翰在自己房間的墻上，不斷地拼合著各種地圖、照片、便條和各種紙張。在他出發(fā)去救勞拉前，把墻上所有東西扯下來，裝滿了幾個垃圾袋，一包丟到他家門前的垃圾桶里，其他的扔到了幾個街區(qū)外的垃圾桶里。最終證明，他這樣做是為了讓偵探搞不清他們最終要去的目的地。他們在入境護照檢查時發(fā)生了驚險的一幕：當一位加拿大官員查看他們的護照時，只看了幾眼照片就示意其他人停止辦理。然而他讓他們過去了，原來是他要換班了。他們走進大廳，他們的照片被加入到候機名單中。國際航班晚點了，而此時警察正在趕往錯誤的目的地。 影片結(jié)束時，這個家庭在委內(nèi)瑞拉的加拉加斯安全團聚。鏡頭回到美國，一位想抓住布倫南的偵探返回到兇案現(xiàn)場，雖然兇案已經(jīng)過去了很多年。運用法理推理技巧，他正設(shè)法找出真相。推理結(jié)果證明殺死勞拉老板的真兇確實是一名搶竊犯——正如她在庭審中申明的那樣——是一系列的巧合導致了勞拉的冤情。他還記得勞拉說過她經(jīng)過搶竊犯身邊時掉了一個紐扣。他注意到，跟謀殺發(fā)生當晚一樣，現(xiàn)在天上正在下雨，在勞拉紐扣可能跌落的地方，他撕下一張紙扔到地上的雨水中，那張紙隨水流人了排水溝，他搜遍了排水溝，卻沒有找到那顆可以證明勞拉無辜的紐扣。事實上，紐扣被埋到了淤泥下面，偵探?jīng)]有發(fā)現(xiàn)。最后一個鏡頭是：這位偵探在回憶，暗示他可能會去再找一遍，并最終發(fā)現(xiàn)那顆紐扣，從而為勞拉昭雪。影片就此給觀眾留下了一個懸念。