Posted: 09/06/2011

Henry’s Crime

(2010)

by Joe Sanders

Henry’s Crime tells the story of Henry Torne (Keanu Reaves), an unimposing tollbooth operator, who agrees to go play softball with his friends one day, unaware that they’re actually planning on robbing a bank. Afterwards, the friends run off and Henry is arrested and convicted of bank robbery. After his release more than a year later, Henry decides that, in order to get closure over this whole betrayal and his wife’s leaving him while in prison, he needs to rob the very same bank that caused him all this trouble. Enlisting the help of his prison cellmate, Max (James Caan), they go to work figuring out how to dig their way into the bank’s 120-year-old vault via a speakeasy tunnel connecting the bank to an adjacent theater.

A good heist movie is incredibly rare. They either need to be perfectly structured (with every element tying together perfectly to make the theft believable and engaging) or be completely character driven, with an incredible ensemble of actors embodying deep and interesting characters. Henry’s Crime achieves neither. It doesn’t even seem to try to create a believable scenario in which this robbery could happen, or a single consistent well-thought-out character. Reeves is definitely the worst of the cast. His performance is even more flat and lifeless than usual. There is clearly nothing at all driving him as a character. We know he wants to rob a bank because he tells us so, but that moment where that want is born is never even hinted at. He coasts through the movie with no emotion, and completely draining any energy the other actors manage to create.

Vera Farmiga has established herself as a few films’ saving grace (Up in the Air and Breaking and Entering come to mind), and I was waiting for her to show up in this to finally get things moving in an interesting way. But alas, she fit right in with her leading man and doesn’t quite have it in her to pull the film out of its rut. Here, Farmiga plays a stage actress rehearsing a production of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard.

Two problems with this. First, narratives involving actors and their craft are almost always incredibly boring. As a rule, this is because nothing is at stake. No one cares if an actress can manage to learn her lines, or if she can nail her blocking; it means nothing in the grand of the film. The other problem is that even though the filmmakers try to spoonfeed their audience connections between The Cherry Orchard and the characters and situations in this film, one would still have to be at least vaguely familiar with the play to get its significance. Even after that, it’s hard to say if the parallels were worth it.

The one shining ray of hope in this film is James Caan. He has inconsistencies like every other character, but he has a genuine charm which comes across nicely throughout the film. As a conman, he’s definitely the best written character in the film because every time he opens his mouth, the audience wants to believe everything he says, and help him in any way they can. We don’t get to see the big Shawshank-esque speech that supposedly convinces the parole board to release him, but based on his other scenes, it would have been great.

Every problem here can be tied back to the script. Screenwriters Sacha Gervasi and David N. White demonstrate their inexperience for all to see by playing with cheaply ironic moments like revealing that Henry’s wife ends up with Joe (Danny Hoch), who was supposed to be driving the getaway car on the bank job instead of Henry. These cute little moments don’t offer any thematic depth to the film overall; they’re simply annoying.

Finally, if you’re still interested in checking out Henry’s Crime, then let me just advise that you not spend the extra money for a Blu-ray copy. The film takes place in an ugly, industrial city, and having all those grays and rusty reds emphasized in HD probably isn’t the ideal way to watch this.

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com