The Next Three Days (2010)

Lara Brennan is wrongly convicted of murdering her boss and is sentenced to life in prison. Her young son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits. Following the failure of her appeal, her attorney balks at taking further action. Lara attempts suicide and her husband John becomes obsessed with breaking her out of prison.

John consults Damon Pennington, a former inmate who wrote a book on escaping from prison. Pennington tells John to ask himself if he can "be that guy" who knocks over an old lady or shoots a cop if it's the difference between escape and a life in jail. Following Damon's advice, John prepares to break his wife out. He studies escape routes and prison routines and buys a handgun. Struggling to obtain fake IDs, he loses much of his money. He sells his furniture and belongings. John is almost caught testing a bump key inside Lara's current jail.

When John learns that Lara will be transferred in three days to a distant prison facility, he is forced to make an emergency plan. Unable to sell his house in time, he considers robbing a bank but hesitates at the last minute. Desperate at his wife's failing mental health, John tails a local drug dealer to a meth lab and robs it of cash. After a firefight with the meth maker, both the dealer and manufacturer end up dead; the dealer is killed by his boss and John kills the manufacturer.

Invoking his plan, John plants falsified blood work indicating Lara is in a state of hyperkalemia and leaves Luke at a birthday party. Lara is transferred from jail to a nearby hospital. Following evidence left behind at the drug house, police track down John's car, find his empty house and conclude that he is planning to break his wife out.

Lara's guards at the hospital are overcome by John, and he convinces her to escape with him. John and Lara exit the hospital, narrowly evade police, and leave the area. They discover Luke is unexpectedly at the zoo for the birthday party and drive there to retrieve him while police set up roadblocks around the city. John and Lara pass through by picking up an elderly couple for cover. They drop off the couple and drive to a Canadian airport. Police are misled by escape plan fragments John has purposely left behind and delay the wrong flight. John, Lara, and Luke successfully board a plane to Caracas.

Detectives return to the crime scene where Lara's boss was killed. A flashback shows details of the murder and Lara's innocence. Remembering that Lara claimed to have lost a button at the time of the murder, a detective searches a nearby storm drain but just misses the button that could have substantiated her alibi.

John, Lara, and Luke arrive at a hotel in Caracas. (Venezuela has no extradition treaty with the U.S.) As Lara lies down next to her son, Luke kisses his mother and they fall asleep together. As the film ends, John takes a picture of his sleeping wife and son.