The Next Three Days 2010

Lara Brennan (Banks) is accused of murdering her boss after an altercation at work. Her college professor husband John Brennan (Crowe) becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her out of jail, and their son Luke[6] ceases to acknowledge her during their prison visits.

John consults Damon Pennington (Neeson), a hardened criminal who has successfully escaped from prison seven times, after reading Damon's book on the subject. Damon advises John to study the prison, saying "any prison has a key". Damon also warns him that the initial escape from the prison will be easy, compared to avoiding capture after the escape. To that end, John must obtain false passports, new social security numbers, and a "truckload of cash" to have a chance of building a life elsewhere. Damon also suggests going to an unstable foreign country that is politically hostile to the United States, so that there would be no extradition or cooperation with United States authorities. John learns the city's plan for capturing escaped prisoners—15 minutes after the escape, the police are to block the nearby roads, and that within 35 minutes, the block will extend to train stations and interstate toll stations, and that their descriptions will be at every airport and train station, though it may take longer for digital photos to be sent.

John plans the escape meticulously and obtains the passports and social security numbers after some painful efforts. The aforementioned "truckload of cash" is harder to come by, and he commits armed robbery of a methamphetamine lab. There is an intense gunfight, but John leaves with a bag full of cash. John falsifies and plants medical evidence indicating that his wife is severely ill, and she is transferred to the hospital. John follows the ambulance and retrieves his wife. She's shocked when he violently subdues a prison guard and initially refuses to come with him, but he challenges her to call Luke to say that she chooses not to reunite with him, after which she relents.

Throughout the movie, John is shown assembling maps, photographs, notes, and other papers on a wall of his house. He tears them down and stuffs it into several garbage bags before leaving to rescue Lara, leaving one bag in the trash can outside his own house, and the rest in a dumpster some blocks away. As it turns out he did this selectively to misguide the detectives, to focus them on flights from Canada to Haiti, giving his family time to board a flight from Toronto to Caracas, Venezuela. They have an uncomfortable moment at Customs, as an officer examines their passports and glances at the page of photographs showing criminals on the run. He allows them to pass. The shift changes, and as they walk down the hall, their photos are finally sent to the security personnel. They reach Venezuela. The detectives back in Pittsburgh quietly re-examine the crime scene but miss some new evidence. It is shown in flashbacks that Lara was in fact innocent.