The Next Three Days (2010) Movie Ending Explained: Centering around a man, John Brennan, who makes it his sole mission in his life to free his wife from jail, Paul Haggis’ The Next Three Days is an American remake of Pour Elle (Anything for Her, 2008) and has Russell Crowe playing the central character. Elizabeth Banks embodies the role of his wife, Lara.
John is firm in the opinion that his wife is innocent. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for John as the world seems to have colluded in making Lara appear guilty. Nothing goes in their favor. One lesson that John imparts to his students at the college becomes an important point in understanding the greater scheme of things. Against a backdrop like this, John could have chosen to stay in a life of despair. Instead, he lets irrationality dictate his course of action.
Spoilers Ahead
The Next Three Days (2010) Plot Explained:
A fine, regular morning routine at the Brennans is interrupted by the police barging in and arresting Lara Brennan. While John Brennan is devastated and looking for reasons for his wife’s sudden arrest, the couple’s son, Luke, is traumatized. Three years later, Luke is now solely taken care of by John. He takes him to meet Lara, who is serving a life sentence at the Alleghany County Jail. However, Luke has formed a dissociation with his mother.
Lara’s appeal is not accepted, and her lawyer tries to convince John to see the case for what it is– Lara killed her boss at the parking lot after an ugly public spat. All pieces of evidence point to her. The co-workers’ statement of having seen her leave the site, her fingerprints on the murder weapon, and a blood mark on her coat. Despite Lara’s insistence that she was inches close to the real suspect– whose coat, in fact, snagged her purse and the button popped out– her lawyer tells John that the court would not have new evidence. With no paths open, Lara finds it better to end her life, but her attempt is unsuccessful. John now feels the only way to put an end to years of misery might be to help her wife break out of the prison.
To this end, John turns to former inmate Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), who recounts the experiences of escaping the jail seven times in his book. Damon says that every jail has an escape key, but one has to be mindful enough while it shows up. However, Damon also warns that escaping the Pittsburgh jail is tough. After 9/11, Homeland Security made a lockdown plan for every city. The lockdown plan is so stringent that a city can be completely sealed in just 15 minutes.
John starts scouting the Allegheny prison and its routines. He also bumps into a drug dealer looking for fake passports, but the dealer and his friend rob him and leave him injured. Later, a deaf motorcyclist shows up at his door and offers him the forged documents in exchange for $3,700. He also gets himself a handgun.
A possible dead-end shows up for John when he takes a bump key to the jail and tries testing it at one of the doors. He is almost caught as a result. This incident puts so much pressure on John that he flees outside the building and vomits. One of the detectives spots this and follows him to his house. The detectives also find out that John is selling his house.
John also breaks into the van of the medical lab that conducts the medical tests of the prisoners, including that of Lara. He finds the reports of Lara to take a photo of it and leaves the van just in time. The next day at the prison, he learns that Lara will be transferred to a high-security jail with only three days’ notice. He tries to hastily sell his house. However, that yields no result, so he thinks of bank robbery. But even this plan fails as he almost runs over a mother and her son without checking. During his next prison visit, a frustrated Lara proclaims that she is indeed the killer, but John does not believe her.
John follows a local drug dealer to their den, where he robs them at gunpoint and sets the house on fire. He also guns down one of the men in the den. While driving the wounded dealer to the hospital, John breaks the tail light of his car. The dealer, however, dies before reaching the hospital, and John leaves his body at a bus stop. Later at night, John arrives at his parents’ house, where John’s father comes across his plane tickets. Fully knowing that he will not see his son or his grandson anymore, he hugs John and lets him go.
John then proceeds to disconnect the phone lines of the medical lab and follows the medical van with Lara’s reports. He breaks into the van once again. John replaces the original report with a forged one that shows Lara is suffering from hyperkalemia. He then drives Luke to his friend’s birthday party. The detectives, on the other hand, have found the car to which the taillight belongs. Through the taillight, they find the connection of Lara and John with the meth lab incident. It is not long before they find out his plan. Lara, on the other hand, is transferred to a hospital.
John reaches the hospital and rescues Lara. They try to flee but are stopped by the detectives. However, they narrowly evade the clutches of the detectives– thanks to the huge swarm of Pittsburgh Penguin supporters. When John goes to pick Luke up from his friend’s house, he is told that the party has shifted to the zoo. John promises Lara that he will find Luke later as there is no time left. Lara, however, is shocked and opens the car door and tries to give up on her life, but John saves her. John takes the risk and gets Luke from the zoo.
John and Lara pick up an old couple on the way for cover and help them reach Buffalo, New York. Finally, they reach an airport in Canada and, by dropping off enough hints that they are escaping to Haiti, they misdirect the police and board a plane flying towards Venezuela.
The Next Three Days (2010) Movie Ending Explained:
Is Lara guilty of the crime?
With John executing this implausibly elaborate plan, one question remains open: is Lara really innocent? This question is pertinent as there has been no evidence of her being innocent apart from John’s conviction, especially when, in the middle of the film, we have found Lara’s proclamation of her being the killer.
But the doubt is settled when a flashback shows Lara bumping into the woman who killed her boss while leaving the parking lot. There is also an explanation for the presence of her fingerprints on the fire extinguisher as she removed it with her hands since it was lying right next to her car. The detectives, in an attempt to reexamine the evidence, go back to the crime scene. The button that Lara keeps mentioning is still stuck in the storm drain. Unfortunately, the detectives fail to notice it.
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