*** - Paul Haggis, the overrated director of the crummy yet inexplicably Oscar-winning 2006 film “Crash”, takes another stab at the drama/thriller genre with this 2010 remake of a 2007 French film. This time out Russell Crowe stars as a delusional community college professor whose wife (played by the blonde woman from the last Kevin Smith movie) kills her boss with a fire extinguisher in a jealous rage and gets rightfully sent up the river for life. However, Crowe – being the delusional lunatic that he is – ignores all the evidence and continually proclaims her innocence while getting together with some disreputable figures and using three whole years to hatch a complex scheme intended to break her out. Overall, it’s a pretty entertaining film despite some inconsistency in its pacing and a fair amount of ridiculousness in the plot (especially in Crowe’s escape plan). I found myself having a difficult time understanding a lot of the character motivations, though. The wife is clearly guilty of the crime, not just because of the mountain of evidence but also because she has the crazy eyes, yet Crowe goes on a horrifying crime spree (which includes murder itself) in order to bust her out. Admittedly, she is a rather attractive woman, so I could see breaking her out if you have no other options. However, there is an even hotter woman at the playground who quite obviously wants some action from ‘little Russell’ so why bother with the murderous rampage and overcomplicated escape plan? Whatever. It’s still a pretty decent flick.
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