I’ve liked Elizabeth Banks ever since Paul Rudd told her she tasted like a burger in Wet Hot American Summer. Since then she has gone on to a fairly eclectic career in both comedy and drama, yet she still hasn’t really broken out as a star.
She’s been in some big films – Catch Me If You Can, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Spider Man Trilogy – but only in bit parts. Regardless of your opinion of the films, her track record with lead roles has not been great: Slither, Invincible, Meet Bill, Fred Claus, Meet Dave, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, W., The Uninvited. Role Models has been her biggest success, but LARPing was the real star of that film. As much as I love seeing her on 30 Rock, she’s just as capable up on the big screen as Reese Witherspoon or Rachel McAdams (I think she would’ve been better than McAdams in Sherlock Holmes), but she’s not gonna get offered those kind of parts until she gets a real hit under her belt.
Could The Next Three Days be the ticket? Written/directed by Walker, Texas Ranger creator Paul Haggis, the film is an American remake of the French thriller Pour elle. The story finds Banks in one of those plum everyone-is-talking-about-me-the-whole-movie roles as a woman arrested for murder. Believing her innocent, her husband (Crowe) teams with an ex-con (Liam Neeson) to bust her out of jail. America fell out of love with Crowe a while ago, but they’ve fallen for Neeson all over again. The fact that the wacky comedy Crash has been the #1 movie on Netflix since it hit DVD didn’t do shit for In the Valley of Elah, but The Next Three Days looks a lot more digestible for your average film goer. Could it be a hit?
The film also stars Olvia Wilde, aging man-mountain Brian Dennehy, and the RZA. Yahoo has the trailer.