The Next Three Days is a pretty good thriller, or at least the last half is. It’s just hard to believe Russell Crowe’s character can pull it off.

Crowe and Elizabeth Banks play a happy couple until the morning police suddenly show up at their door and arrest her for murder. And the evidence is pretty convincing that she did it.

Soon she’s in jail for life but Crowe’s life (as a college professor) is coming apart without her. So he devises a plan to break his wife out of jail and flee the country with their young son.

He learns what he needs to do from a successful jail escapee (Liam Neeson) but then he bumbles around trying to buy fake passports, get a weapon, raise money and such, perhaps like a real college professor would. But once he actually puts his plan into action, James Bond would be hard put to equal the split-second timing and action hero he turns into.

Now the escape sequence during the last half of the movie is suspenseful and writer/director Paul Haggis often has you on the edge of your seat. But it’s as unbelievable as it is entertaining.