Paul Haggis directs Russell Crowe in this jail-break movie of stifling seriousness. Elizabeth Banks, Crowe’s glam wife and mother to their moppet son, is accused and convicted of a co-worker’s murder. She chafes under the pressures of prison life and the separation from her family. (Also, her hair goes to shit.) Is she innocent or guilty? Haggis high-mindedly prods us into wrestling with the implications of Crowe’s prison break attempt, watering down the storytelling with pompous moral parable. Guys, massage our brains with a Swiss-watch plot; the train in Unstoppable was more intellectually satisfying.
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2010.
