Best Keanu: “I used to go along with everything. I didn’t know I could change it. So now I’m changing it.”

Keanu Reeves and Vera Farmiga, Henry and Julie in Henry’s Crime, have a nice relationship. It arises spontaneously, without a modicum of drama. It’s the nicest thread in this film, the piece that’s the most engaging to watch.

Julie is the most interesting character in Henry’s Crime. She enters the movie by hitting Henry with her car. She takes him to a nearby cafe, reveals herself to be an actress, and eventually, Henry — a toll booth operator just released from prison for robbery — snags a role opposite her in a play to get easy access to a tunnel under the theatre that leads to a bank vault.

It sounds like the plot of a crazy comedy, but Henry’s Crime is too quiet for big laughs. It’s like the filmmakers weren’t quite sure what tone to strike, so they piled on the hijinx but kept the pace very slow so the audience had time to contemplate the sacrifices one makes for art — Julie takes her craft seriously enough to want out of Buffalo, but is acutely self-aware of her limitations — the plight of the modern worker — Henry describes his life working nights on the highway, avoiding his wife’s discussions about having children, as a fine one — and what makes a home — Henry’s co-conspirator in the crime is a lifer who doesn’t want to leave prison.

It doesn’t occur to Henry to lie to Julie about his plans, nor hide that his friend Max, played by James Caan, is on hand to help him get the job done. Julie, for her part, seems relatively unworried about the upcoming heist. It’s another part of her appeal.

Julie is who I am most of the time, or who I imagine myself to be, with her uncombed hair and tired outlook on life. She’s also pretty willing to just go along with whatever happens, not in a passive way, but more like this-seems-interesting-so-I-think-I’ll-stick-around-for-a-bit.

Perhaps the best part of Henry and Julie’s relationship is that the arc of change belongs to her and not to him. It’s an unusual development in a movie, where that progression lands on the sole female lead. She falls in with Henry, and there’s a beautiful ease in their scenes together, a kind of honesty and lack of burden. He easily falls for her, and she for him, and her defenses arise when he tells her he’s about to complete the job — meaning he has to leave.

And there’s Peter Stormare, again, showing up like he does in Constantine and John Wick 2. Here he’s an eccentric/passionate/verbally expressive theatre director.

Henry’s Crime has a collection of decent pieces that should make it — on paper — a decent film. But they don’t amount to much, even if you really, really, really want them to. Even if you’re rooting for this movie.

Ultimately, Henry’s Crime is a perfectly respectable film. It’s objectively more respectable than, say, Knock Knock or Replicas, but those other two movies — well, ok, just the first half or so of Knock Knock — are watchable enough to keep you interested. Henry’s Crime would have been better with a bottle of wine, had I not been averse to drinking in the middle of the day.

Coffee was not a strong enough stimulant for this movie. But it’s worth it, I suppose, if you have any connection to the theatre and can impart your own analysis or deep meaning into the play-within-a-movie subplot or if, say, you’ve robbed a bank in the past and can say, “oh yeah, I can relate to this.”

Good pieces, extra strong coffee. Or some wine if you’re not sober.

(And, according to Keanu, some nice romantic sex afterwards.)

March 2022