LAST THREE DAYS (2020, Brian Ulrich)

* * 

A rookie narcotics cop inadvertently starts jumping back and forth through time.

Starring  Robert Palmer Watkins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Deborah Lee Smith, Roy Huang

Written by  Brian Ulrich

Produced by  Brian Ulrich, Julianna Ulrich, Jonathan M Black

Duration  86 minutes

 

 

I've tried to avoid doing these reviews in a predicable, bog-standard 'and then this happens, and then that happens' style. But for LAST THREE DAYS, I'm going to do exactly that, for better or for worse. 

Let's see how we get on!

Monday, 22st, a title card tells us. We're in a house, it looks like a crime has taken place. Empty beer bottles, furniture knocked over. Expended shell casings, a discarded handgun. Jack, a police officer and our protagonist, is there, and his colleagues soon burst in and pull their guns on him. Uh-oh; what have you done, Jack? He pleads innocence, but whatever has gone down here, the evidence against the young cop is pretty damning.

Then it's seven years ago. College-student Jack is in shorts, sitting underneath a tree, study books open. Then a pretty girl turns up and tells him that this is her favourite study spot. Jack agrees to let her sit there if he can take her out to dinner. She tells him she's writing an essay on the nature of time and memories; the audience is invited to believe that this is relevant to her nursing degree, not just clumsy plot foreshadowing. Jack, meanwhile, is majoring in criminal law and aspires to be a top detective.

They walk and talk and flirt. He gets her name and number. She's Beth. We montage through their relationship. Soon they're married, moving in together, now indeed working as police officer and nurse.

Then it's seven years later again, this time Wednesday, 17th. Beth comes home from her nursing job to an exposition-rich noticeboard, where she's marked that it's been 'Five days without Jack', and also that it's soon going to be their fifth wedding anniversary.

Then we’re with Jack and his veteran partner, Dave, busting into a drug dealer's house. "Sometimes in life we're given second chances," Jack informs the perp while cuffing him. "What we do with them … is up to us." Philosopher as well as lawman is our Jack.

Meanwhile, Beth is still waiting for Jack to come home. Instead, he goes to play cards with his cop buddies in a bar. They talk about local gang warfare, specifically the Japanese 'Yakus'. (Is ‘Yakuza’ a trademark or something? Or did the filmmakers want to avoid upsetting a real/real dangerous group?). Jack gets a call from the missus, wondering if he is ever coming home. He argues that as the newest member of the team he needs to socialise with his colleagues to build trust.

Beth hangs up. She is working late too, getting relationship advice from an older colleague, who insists that Jack does still love her.

Then it's the next day, Thursday, 18th. Jack assures Beth via text that he will be home tonight. Later, he and Dave meet up with a young Japanese woman to try and find out about the Yakus' next move. 

Davey Boy is a bit too cavalier for Jack: he boasts about not caring about doing a bust without a warrant or breaking any other rules, if it means they gets a result. But Jack nevertheless assures his increasingly dodgy-seeming partner that he does have his back. So, he agrees to go out for yet another drink after work – neglecting poor Beth for the umpteenth time, leaving her alone dressed in her best sexy outfit and nursing (no pun intended) a cold steak dinner. Jack didn't even realise that it's their anniversary today! 

And when he comes home drunk and accuses her of not respecting him, she accuses him of turning into his father, which he’s mentioned is his worst nightmare. So, Jack storms out again and catches up with Dave and the others in a strip bar. You can now mark 'strip bar' off from your cop movie clichés bingo card.

Next morning, Jack wakes up hungover in his own house, but alone: no Beth. And it turns out that rather than being Friday morning like it should be, it's actually Monday, 22nd! So just what the hell has happened to the LAST THREE DAYS?

He goes to Dave's house and finds it dishevelled; in fact, we're now back at the setup from the start of the movie. Jack's own gun is in the vicinity, as is a sexy photo Beth gave him of herself way back in the day. And when he plays Dave's answerphone messages, he hears Beth saying that she's left Jack and that she loves Dave! WTF?

Then a masked man bursts in and tries to shoot Jack, who shoots back. Before he can see if he's tagged him, Jack finds Dave’s bloodied corpse in the bathroom. When Jack's other cop pals turn up, it doesn't look good for our poor rookie. He legs it out the house but, in his haste, doesn't look both ways and is hit by a car.

Then Jack wakes in a dumpster, with no gun and a busted phone. But now when he checks the date on his watch it turns out that it's Sunday, 21st!

Jack happens upon (I guess?) some members of the Yaku and kidnaps one, getting out of him that they killed Dave and have framed Jack. And as for Beth, her whereabouts and whether that "I've left you for Dave" message was genuine? Jack still doesn't know!

After tussling with the Yakus, Jack races home and finds a "I still love you Jack, happy anniversary!" note from Beth. So, determined to piece together what the fuck is going on, Jack pulls down that exposition-tool whiteboard they have in their kitchen and starts doodling on it, lines and names and arrows, with dates and times. It’s a little like that scene with Doc Brown and the blackboard in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.

Then Jack wakes up again and it's Saturday now (the 20th – do try to keep up) and Dave is still alive. And Jack's getting into a car with Dave and asking him what's going on, when did he last see Beth? But Dave quickly moves the conversation onto work, specifically the against-protocol methods he wants to use to bust the Yakus.

Those include meeting their female informant (at least I think that’s what she was) with her Yaku pals in a warehouse. Soon, the female big boss Yaku emerges from the shadows. She doesn't trust Dave and at gunpoint forces him to admit that they're cops. (So, I guess they were undercover this whole time?) Then there's a shootout. The informant (?) girl is shot and the two cops run away. Then another shootout, on the pavement this time. Dave is hit, so gives Jack some incriminating evidence he has about the Yakus and tells him to take off. Then the Yakus call Dave "a real piece of shit" and shoot him dead.

Presently, Jack finds a payphone and tries calling Beth but can't get through. So, nursing a Yuka-administered gunshot wound, he goes to the hospital where she works. He doesn't find her, but, after collapsing due to blood loss, he is treated by Beth's nurse friend. The friend tells him that he had an unknown narcotic in his bloodstream – it's 'reaper', the new designer drug that the Yakus are dealing. Could they have slipped Jack some and that's what has been altering his perception of time?

We finally see where Beth is: staying with her dad. Jack rushes to her, but he's not in time to stop her getting kidnapped (pick up that bingo marker again) – and we see the Yaku forcing her at gunpoint to leave that cryptic answerphone message about leaving Jack and loving Dave.

Then it's the morning of Friday, the 19th. Alone again, Jack wakes up in bed and tries to call Beth – no answer! All seems lost. Jack meets Dave and tells him that he's off the case: "I've got a wife, man. It's time I started thinking about her." But Dave threatens him: turns out he's ultimately working for the Yakus, so wants to make sure Jack does what he's told, otherwise Dave will order his Yaku pals to hurt Beth. It's been/is/was/will be Dave who setting Jack up, all along! Damn, some partner!

The two of them tussle in a parking garage and Jack eventually gets the upper hand. He then has just 15 minutes to race to rescue Beth before she's due to be grabbed by one of Dave's/the Yaku's goons. He makes it, but she rejects his attempts at reconciliation.

But, no, wait a minute – in the movie’s final moments she kisses him in their kitchen as the sun sets through the window. These kids are gonna be all right, folks.

Phew, we made it! Blimey, that was hard work. Don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

Oh, and the film is OK, if a bit incoherent. Nothing amazing, but not one-star bad.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Actually one of the more accurate uses I’ve come across. Although if I were to be pedantic, I'd say they should have gone for 'the previous'.

What would a movie called FIRST THREE DAYS be like?  In terms of cop movies, sounds like it would be a longer version of TRAINING DAY. A movie to which this one has been compared, to the extent that anyone but me has actually bothered writing about LAST THREE DAYS.

 

Previously:  I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST KISS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com