This is a quirky, low-budget independent movie about a toll booth operator turned bank robber in Buffalo, New York. Keanu Reeves is Henry Torne, a man struggling to take control of his life, until he ends up in prison for a crime he hasn’t committed. While inside, his cellmate Max (James Caan) inspires him to fulfill his potential and find his dream. When he finally works out what he wants, it seems to include robbing a bank, playing Lopakhin in a production of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard and falling in love. If it sounds a bit cheesy and rather odd, it is.
The film is amusing in parts. During the opening scene Henry arrives home from a stressful night working the toll booth to a cooked breakfast and a serious discussion with his wife, Debbie, (Judy Greer) about their social commitments for the weekend, having kids and where their relationship is going. Clearly she wants one thing and he really isn’t that interested in any of it. He is just happy to say whatever she wants to hear, in order to end the conversation (sound familiar?). Not even his wife believes anything he says. So when his dodgy-looking, low life mates turn up dressed in their softball kit and say they need Henry to step in to make up the numbers, he is more than happy to oblige. Even though it is so obviously the wrong season for the sport, he just wants to get out of the house.
This is how Henry unwittingly finds himself mixed up in a bank robbery that goes wrong. He is, he later realises, the designated driver, not a softball player at all. How dim can one man be? And when he gets caught, he refuses to name names, and therefore ends up carrying the can for all of them, looking at three to seven years inside. It would seem that is preferable to any further deep and meaningful conversations with Debbie. So when Debbie decides to leave him for a man who is even less interesting and nowhere near as good-looking, Henry couldn’t be happier for her. He is mightily relieved to find a way out of the marriage. Although frankly, it seems an awful lot of hassle to go to; he could have just got a divorce if he had opened his mouth and spoken up a bit earlier. Meanwhile poor Debbie ends up with a fat man with a get rich quick scheme and a trailer load of Korean kitchenware he can’t sell.
It is all looking pretty tragic, rather like the plot of a Chekov play, one might think? You might not be far wrong. Hey presto, Henry gets out of jail, goes straight back to the Buffalo bank he is supposed to have robbed, and while standing outside, gets run over by Julie, the leading lady in a Chekov play being staged at a theatre across the street. Not only has Henry finally woken up from his slumber (the car accident might have helped), and decided he has a dream after all, but there is obviously a love interest too. The dream is to rob the bank. “I’ve done the time, I may as well do the crime.” He realises that he needs access to the theatre, as there is an old bootlegger’s tunnel from one of the dressing rooms to the bank vault. So with the help of his old cellmate, confidence trickster, Max Saltzman, they not only manage to get inside the theatre but get Henry a main part as Lopakhin to Julie’s Mrs Ranevsky.
Julie and Henry fall in love while quoting Chekov to each other, which is a bizarrely romantic kind of foreplay. And while Ranevsky and Lopakin both deal with their illusions and emotional hang-ups on stage, Julie and Henry seem to have parallel problems off stage. Both are fearful of emotional commitment. Henry suffers from the illusion that he needs to rob a bank he got caught trying to rob once, when he wasn’t even trying. But somehow trying to get it right this time will lead him somewhere. Where exactly? Back to jail? And Julie thinks she will be propelled to Hollywood stardom with her starring role in a clearly less than professional, backwater production of The Cherry Orchard. That is about all you need to know, as far as the characters in the play are concerned, in order to enjoy the movie. The scenes from the play are important but mercifully short, because in my opinion Chekov works far better as a summary with a few tasty quotes. Anyone who has ever had to read one of his plays as a school text knows exactly what I am talking about.
The ending is of course predictable, after nearly two hours. The heist has to take place on opening night and what will win out for Henry, love or money? I am not sure I would ever have chosen to see it, if I had not been asked to review it. It is though mildly entertaining with some humorous moments. Max gets all the best lines: “Chekov, next to Gorbachev, he’s my favourite Russian.” Vera Farmiga gives a reasonable performance as Julie, and she has a certain chemistry with Keanu Reeves. Although frankly, his chemistry with James Caan seems to work better. The comedy is slightly offbeat and did make me smile at times. It is the work of a British director, Malcolm Venville, the child of two deaf parents, who is also a photographer, a perspective that may explain the serious lack of dialogue from the main character. Venville’s first feature film was 44 Inch Chest, a British gangster movie starring Ray Winstone. Venville manages to infuse the film with a slightly whacky and understated humour. Worth seeing if you have nothing better to do, although it is now out on DVD, and personally I am not sure it is worth the trip to the cinema for.
Directed by Malcom Venville
Starring Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga and James Caan
US 2011 708mins
