'Next Three Days' puts Pittsburgh center stage

This month, movie theaters are stuffed with Pittsburgh-shot movies -- "Unstoppable" opened last week and "Love and Other Drugs" opens Wednesday -- but only one gives the city a starring role.

"The Next Three Days," opening Friday, stars Russell Crowe as a happily-married community college teacher, whose life is torn apart when police burst through his doors and arrest his wife for murder. Even worse, the evidence against her is solid, including the victim's blood on her coat.

Slowly, it becomes clear that she isn't going to get out any time soon. Their young son is growing distant towards her, and she's becoming suicidal. So, the mild-mannered teacher decides to do the unthinkable -- break his wife out of jail.

After consulting an ex-con expert on prison breaks (Liam Neeson), he learns that breaking out of jail is the easy part -- he also has to break out of Pittsburgh. With its many rivers and bridges, the city can be quickly sealed off.

As anyone who has been anywhere near a tunnel during rush hour knows, Pittsburgh isn't easy to escape. It was up to the film's screenwriter and director Paul Haggis to find a way.

"I just tried to walk the city and figure out how I would get out of jail," Haggis says.

Haggis, who won back-to-back Oscars as a screenwriter for "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash," adapted "The Next Three Days" from a low-budget French film, "Anything for Her" (2008). He had never been to Pittsburgh before, but quickly found exactly what he was looking for.

"First of all, it had to work for the script, and to be geographically correct," says Haggis. "I was looking for a city that hasn't been shot as much. Although Pittsburgh is being shot a lot now, at the time, it hadn't been shot as Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh."

In movies, directors have a short time to establish and define their characters. Setting the movie in Pittsburgh instantly tells you something about them, Haggis says, particularly the relationship between John and his quiet, stoic father, played by Brian Dennehy.

"I looked for a city that mirrored the story," says Haggis. "You have two generations of men. Brian Dennehy's character, who would have worked in the steel mills. You look at those guys, that generation -- those are men's men. Those are the guys who you look at and say, 'Would they break their wife out of prison?' Absolutely. They might die trying, but they won't even blink at whether they're going to do it or not.

"Then you look at the next generation. Pittsburgh evolved from that, and re-created itself as a city of education, medicine, art and business. WIth that, the entire architecture changed. With the case of John (Crowe's character), he is going to be a teacher. Not a highbrow teacher -- a teacher at community collage. He's the guy who looks at this crisis in his life, and asks, 'My dad would be able to do this, but me• Am I truly a man?' I thought the city and how it's changed reflected the story very well."

Crowe is instantly plausible as an action hero, but can also project a certain vulnerability, making him perfect for the role, says Haggis.

"I really wanted someone who could just fall into the character," Haggis says. "And five minutes into the film, you look at him and go, 'Poor sap, he hasn't got a chance.' I knew Russell could do that. He's played characters like in 'A Beautiful Mind' where he's so frail and flawed. So I knew he'd do that brilliantly."

Pittsburgh wasn't picked for its looks alone. The state's film tax credits played a major role.

"You really need a tax credit these days," says Haggis. "I wouldn't have gone to Albuquerque to shoot this, so it wouldn't matter how big the tax credit was (there) -- you still need a great location. And you need a great crew base. The people really cared, from the set PAs (production assistants), to those doing the lighting, to the grips. We're all filmmakers, whether you're driving a car or building a set.

"The tax credit, which is really helping to draw in more production, which is training more people, so you have a larger base to draw on -- that itself is attracting more films. Which is great -- you need a certain size of crew to really rely on when they (films) come in."

Haggis says he was drawn to "The Next Three Days" because he "always wanted to do a thriller."

"I like the idea of adult thrillers where you really get to explore character," he says. "This is truly a love story more than anything. The French film was lovely, but it was a small, slight film, very simple. I wanted to expand on it, by asking more questions of myself -- put my characters through the ringer more, before they come out the other side."

Locations in Pittsburgh

The city, shot last fall, looks great in "The Next Three Days" -- from the Mt. Washington-at-night establishing shot, to the fall foliage-packed hillsides in the background of many scenes. One character has a home on the North Side, with a stunning view of the city from an angle that doesn't usually show up in postcards.

Of course, it's not all supposed to be postcard-perfect. Gloomy grey autumn skies set a forbidding mood. A drug dealer's rundown rowhouse is uncomfortably cramped and crumbling. The stark, antiseptic interiors of Allegheny County Jail are fittingly claustrophobic.

Alert viewers may note a few geographical errors.

"We tried our very best to be true geographically," says writer/director Paul Haggis. "The hospital, we had to move. I think the second unit got the bridge upside down. I asked them to go shoot the bridge, and they shot it the wrong way. I went, 'Oh, well, the folks in Pittsburgh will notice ...' "

An important meeting takes place in the aquarium-tunnel at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, and a Penguins game-day crowd plays an important role.

Russell Crowe sports a Primanti's T-shirt, and a Pirates cap.

"I would hope that people who see the film would think that we've honored the city," says Haggis. "I really wanted to make it look as beautiful as it is, and really bring out some of its character."