Simply A Masterpiece

Nice effects though.

Expected more

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Based on prior reviews I watched this movie and kept hoping it would get better. There was a major disconnect between the characters. It was like watching a bad play within a bad play. Bad acting, bad directing and bad producing. This movie does not draw you in and does not make you connect with or like any of the characters. Keanu Reeves is so monotone for most of the film. Perhaps in the beginning he is supposed to be, but his character never really develops. Even the so called "love" or "romance" scenes do not draw you in. The whole movie seems staged and fake. Don't waste your time. You're not missing anything by skipping over this one.

I understand why some people did not like this very good film - it is slower, and it is not The Matrix, or Konstantin. This is a very good work, and yes, Keanu's character is a bit slow, silent and detached - but here is what he is like. His role is balanced perfectly by fiery and very funny James Caan who did a very, very excellent job. His part of a con-man is a great plus, and his part is almost The best in here. Vera Farmiga is another great plus of the movie, her part of a Russian theater actress is very cool, too. She does a perfect Diva here, and does it extremely convincing way. Well, yes, the movie is not a fast and furious action one, but this was not the intent. The very theater style of the film is obvious, and the nice link to the Chekhov's play is a warm heart-thawing welcome for all Russian viewers. Keanu is a very good Lopakhin and Vera is a very sweet Ranevskaya. And then, yeah, here is excellent Peter Stormare as a choleric and very short-tempered theater director with all his idiosyncrasies and craze. Casting was done very well, and this stellar ensemble of actors is a mighty element for the great movie.

He did the time for a bank robbery he didn't commit. Now that he's out, he's really gonna rob that bank. Nice Concept. Might look implausible if the actors don't tread delicately with utmost conviction. Or unless you can find an actor that stands outside the field of acting altogether and can retain a blank poker face through it all. Enter Keanu Reeves.He's Henry, a shiftless toll booth operator in Buffalo, suckered into being accessory to a bank robbery and imprisoned, whereupon his cellmates (led by James Caan as Max) urge him to exact recompense for the injustice of his incarceration: when he gets out, commit a real crime to make up for the time he already did unjustly.Though a comedy caper movie, HENRY'S CRIME is not flashy or frenetic; it's indie all the way (written by David White, Stephen Hamel and Sacha Gervasi - who may be the love-child of Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais). With lean, expedient direction by Malcolm Venville, initially funded by Keanu himself, the movie plods along bemusedly and interestingly, much like its lead character, who takes everything with equanimity. He is, after all, The One.Henry never bats an eyelid when he is arrested; or when his girlfriend (insipid Judy Greer) visits him in jail to tell him she has fallen in love; even when he is victim of a violent Meet Cute, as he is run down in the street by aspiring theater actress Julie (the stunning Vera Farmiga, in an uncharacteristically shrikey role). Nothing seems to reach this guy's nerve endings. Usually I would laugh and/or complain about the lack of acting from Keanu, but in this context, his demeanor fits perfectly. One would have to be quite inured to emotion existing each day in the suburban rut we find him in, and then to endure jail time. Yet his determination (or whatever you'd call that somnambulistic pseudo-ambition) to lash out and grab life by the baby-makers, to rob the very bank he was convicted of robbing indicates SOME kind of moral outrage at the least.Didn't Morpheus tell us The One would bring balance? Henry needs Max to help him pull the heist, so he convinces Max to take his parole. Up 'til now, Max - a lifer who loves prison for its regularity - has dialed the Crazy up to 8 every time he sat in front of the parole board. He'd rather be called a "confidence man" than "con-man" (too pedestrian); perpetrating a crime is not even about the money, but the thrill of the chase, and getting caught for that crime will only land him back in jail - which he loves - so it's all win-win for him.Henry and Julie must necessarily bonk, she must necessarily figure in the plot (by rehearsing in a theater right next door to the bank - a theater which once had a tunnel connecting it to the bank vault - oh, heavens to plot convenience!), Max necessarily provides comic sidekick relief, and Henry must necessarily become an unwitting hero during the heist... What ISN'T so necessary is Peter Stormare going above and beyond as eccentric Euro director of the play, Darek Millodragovic, whose overacting and over-accent is so hilarious, Keanu almost snapped out of his jet lag.To infiltrate the theater complex, Henry must join the theater company... and so flowers the greatest irony in this movie: this guy who Can't Actually Act (in real life or in this movie role) must act at being an Actor.It's a fine line this movie treads in making Henry an anti-hero (read as criminal) and allowing him to commit a crime that is not morally reprehensible, so he doesn't lose the audience. In that sense, Keanu's underplaying-to-the-point-of-chloroform performance is exemplary, selling us a character who bemusedly decides that his only post-prison option is to actually do what the confidence man suggested.Amusing resolution, though gutless, as Henry has to somehow pay for his crime, no matter how innocuous it was, and no matter that he was already convicted mistakenly. Damn you MPAA, and your obnoxious, hypocritical meddling in otherwise interesting movies! If the MPAA had any sense - which they don't - they would make the people who incarcerated Henry incorrectly pay for THAT injustice. But that's too complicated for a society weaned on seeing "crime" as low-level, easily-defeated, punch-em-up tropes. The jejune surrender to good screen writing by making Henry get busted again - simply for trying to even the score against The Man - THAT... is the movie's real crime.--Poffy The Cucumber

Malcolm Venville's 'Henry's Crime' is a delightfully lowkey heist/ romantic comedy. By romantic comedy I don't mean those sugarcoated typically Hollywood rom-coms that are set in New York or that star Julia Roberts. This is nothing like that. The humour is quite dry and subtle and the romance is depicted effectively through non-verbal expressions rather than words. Then there's the heist angle which is depicted very simply. The director and writer don't attempt to build tension (as is done in most other heist flicks) because the primary focus is on the characters and 'Henry's Crime' has some fascinating ones.The production values are modest and the execution is pretty good. The sets are quite appealing without having to be lavish. Several instrumental tracks in the score are brilliant. Silence is effectively used as the quietness brings out a certain charm.Keanu Reeves plays the title character and his performance here is better than most of what he's done. He is overshadowed by Vera Farmiga, Judy Greer and James Caan. Greer has a very small role but she wonderfully conveys the layers of her character. Farmiga is superb as the feisty yet bitter but soft-hearted Juñie Ivanova. She plays the part very naturally. Caan provides some excellent comic relief. The supporting cast is very good even though Stormare's caricature director does occasionally get on one's nerves.To sum it up, 'Henry's Crime' is a simple and splendid heist rom-com. The symbolic ending has various layers and it doesn't desperately try too hard to tie things up.