There’s not a lot of reality in Malcolm Venville’s romantic caper. Keanu Reeves stars as a diffident chap from Buffalo, New York, who is sentenced to three years in prison as the inadvertent getaway driver for a posse of bank robbers.
He develops a friendship with a fellow prisoner (James Caan), who persuades him he might as well rob a bank when he comes out just to spite the authorities. When he finds a tunnel between a local theatre and the bank vault, he is all set to perform a raid — but then he’s run over by an actress (Vera Farmiga), which leads not only to a romance but his joining the cast of The Cherry Orchard.
If you believe all this, you’ll believe anything. Paul Cameron’s moody camerawork in a wintry New York is more convincing than Keanu’s turn in Chekhov, but Farmigna displays some charm and Caan’s performance as a discursive old lag has some spunk to it. Venville made the ferocious 44 Inch Chest, by the way — but this is gentle as custard pie.
Henry's Crime
Cert: 15
