Henry’s Crime
Keanu Reeves, James Caan, Vera Farmiga
Directed by Malcolm Venville
Fox Home Entertainment 2011
108 minutes
Henry’s Crime is a wannabe comic crime caper Blu-ray. The trailer for this movie is about as good as it gets. Unless you are a die hard fan of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and like the idea of seeing bits of it as background to the main story, there is little of interest here. Reeves emotes almost as well as one of the Mount Rushmore faces, James Caan does what he can with what little he gets, and supporting actress and love interest Vera Farmiga does not help much.
Reeves plays (to be generous) Henry, a nobody who gets arrested in what he does not clue in in time is getaway car while his buddies are robbing the bank. He does the time and meets Max, an old con (James Caan). When he is released, Henry is attracted to the scene of he crime he did not do. He learns of a prohibition era underground tunnel connecting the bank vault to the theater across the street. Henry gets Max to help him rob the bank.
Henry gets involved with the theater’s lead actress while she is rehearsing The Cherry Orchard. Since the tunnel opens in the lead actor’s dressing room stuff happens and non-actor Henry gets the part, thus allowing his cohorts to dig the tunnel while he rehearses the play.
It takes about an hour for the crime to really get started. A couple of wrenches get dropped in the works for good measure but nothing that changes anything.
The crime takes place the night of the premiere. Stuff happens and there is a very weird ending.
There is little point if any aside from a good soporific in watching this movie.