I was looking forward to this one for some time, as I’d meant to tackle this one in theaters but something else cropped up instead. And now, the folks at Lions Gate have stepped in to fill the gap and sent a copy of The Next Three Days for me to review for you. And I’m very, very glad they did.

The Next Three Days follows a normal, happy family that will stay neither normal nor happy for long. The mother has just been arrested for murder, and the father has decided that the thing to do is not go through the legal system and clear her name proper–though he tries that, for three years, too–but rather, to show the legal system who REALLY runs things and break her out of jail. Now, the family is on the run in a desperate bid to both survive and stay together.

Part of the great fun of The Next Three Days comes from watching our hero plan the escape of his wife and family. As it turns out, breaking someone out of jail is a phenomenally difficult prospect. Time frames are measured in minutes. The operation is so incredibly complex that watching it get figured is like watching a sculpture in progress.

But it only gets better from there; see, the first half of the movie is all about the preparation that’s involved in breaking a woman out of prison. The second half is all about what you do when you’re out. Like one of the characters–a sorely underused Liam Neeson–says: getting out is the easy part. It’s staying free that’s hard.

And when the plan doesn’t go according to Hoyle, watching the resulting improvisations is well worth the price of admission.

This is a taut thriller that does spectacularly well. Even the things that might be described as plot holes–like how so many things go just right for our fugitives–can be explained away as the result of sheer careful planning. There’s even a nifty twist at the end that will be just piles of fun all at once.

So basically, we’re dealing with a movie that packs both suspense and thrills in almost equal measure, a constant skein of delights, and even caps it all off with a twist. This cannot be described as anything but a good movie.

The Screenhead Ten Scale reacts accordingly, giving The Next Three Days, a surprisingly sweet title, an eight out of ten–it’s got lots to love and will prove terribly exciting for those of you who like your movies with plenty of action and suspense all at the same time.