The Next Three Days is a 2010 American crime thriller film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks.

A remake of the 2008 French film Pour elle (Anything for Her) by Fred Cavayé, the plot follows a husband who takes extreme measures to break his wife out of prison after she is wrongfully convicted for the murder of her boss.

Three years later, her young son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits, despite the efforts of her husband John.

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.

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 his belongings.

John also learns how to break into the van for the medical lab that conducts Lara's diabetes testing.

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.

Setting his plan in motion, John cuts the lab's phone lines and plants falsified blood work in the van indicating that Lara is in a state of hyperkalemia, before leaving Luke at a birthday party.

Detectives trace John's broken tail light while investigating the meth lab incident and break into his empty house, realizing he is planning to free his wife.

With Luke unexpectedly at the zoo for the birthday party, John realizes they have run out of time and turns onto the highway, saying they will find him later.

Lara opens her car door, ready to fall onto the road and end their problems, but John narrowly saves her, and they risk retrieving Luke from the zoo.

[3][4] The plot of Pour Elle involves a teacher, Julien (Vincent Lindon), who experiences difficulties when his wife (Diane Kruger) becomes a suspect in a murder investigation and is arrested;[3] Julien does not believe that his wife is guilty of the crime, and attempts to remove her from the prison.

[12] By March 2010, the Australian media company Village Roadshow was set to release the film in Australia in November 2010.

The critics consensus reads: "Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks give it their all, but their solid performances aren't quite enough to compensate for The Next Three Days' uneven pace and implausible plot.

[17] In her positive review, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "The movie's real strength ... is generating escalating waves of plot tension and misdirection as John, heeding advice, makes his jail-busting moves.

"[18] In contrast, Roger Ebert awarded the film two and a half out of four stars and said, "The Next Three Days is not a bad movie; it's just somewhat of a waste of the talent involved.