I finally got around to watching The Next Three Days last weekend, the Russell Crowe prison breakout movie set in Pittsburgh. In the movie, Russell Crowe's wife (Elizabeth Banks) is imprisoned for a murder that we don't know if she committed or not. When it becomes clear that the legal process has played itself out and she will be spending the rest of her days in Allegheny County Jail on the Mon, Crowe begins hatching his escape plan for her.Of course, as we find out, Pittsburgh's jail is a particularly difficult nut to crack, with a natural moat provided by the three rivers that require traversing easily roadblocked bridges on the way ahta tahn.
The big escape scene includes a ride on the T, blending into a Penguins game day crowd, a near crash on 376, a drive through the Armstrong Tunnel and even a trip to the polar bear exhibit at the zoo.
Otherwise, it's a pretty formulaic prison escape flick that requires a suspension of disbelief but nonetheless delivers quality suspense and action. But it's our prison escape flick, damn it, and well worth the $1 at Red Box for any self-respecting Pittsburgher to check out.
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I recognized all of the locations from main scenes to side scenes. I particularly enjoy the fact that when they were in "New York" planning the escape from the "most difficult jail to break out of in the country" if not the nation (ha-ha) they were actually at the Luna on North Craig. I also saw the cast for about a week as I walked to work. N3D really put up a great representation of da burgh. This could rival the classic, "Striking Distance", although "Striking Distance" did feature one of the great characters of the silver screen, the Pittsburgh mustache.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't put this one in the same class as Striking Distance in the Pantheon of Pittsburgh Film Classics. But, I don't want to say too much and steal my own thunder because the next post I'm working on is a Pittsburgh Movie Power Rankings.
ReplyDeletehey Ben it's meg..........i mock this blog daily but sadly now i am interested.....how do all of u guys have so much randomness to post and make it interesting?!!??!!? hope u and the fam are doing well :) ur little guy is super cute and we know Lorelai will love seeing him this summer....cant wait to c ur next post. i like the burgh stuff bc it makes me feel like we aren't too far away...am i violating some type of rules bc i am a female posting here??? im guessing there arent many wives/gfriends reading this
ReplyDeleteWe've got 850 page views someone other than us is reading....
ReplyDeleteHey Meg, glad you're enjoying it. I think the only rule violation comes from talking about babies and pleasantries on the blog. That goes on facebook. Here you need to tell jokes, insult others, share curiosities, etc. But keep reading, I never run out of stuff to share on Pittsburgh.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Ben. Pleasantries belong on facebook. Jokes and insults belong to the blog.
ReplyDeleteMy friend saw this movie in DC. He told me that when they used the GPS to get to the zoo, he yelled out, 'you'll never make it during rush hour! You gotta go through shady side!' or something like that.... a bunch of people in the crowd started laughing. Lots of yinzers in the crowd even in DC.
Every time I think of Striking Distance, I think of the time we watched over half of the movie, then Anderson casually mentions, "My dad's in the next scene." I think he has a line with Bruce too..
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