Toll-booth attendant Henry (Keanu Reeves) serves jail time for a bank heist he didn't commit. On being released he determines to rob the same bank (on the grounds that he might as well, as he has already served the time). He recruits cellmate Max (James Caan) to help with a plan involving using an old tunnel between the bank and the theatre next door. The theatre is rehearsing Chekov's The Cherry Orchard and we find Max both performing and falling for actress Julie (Vera Farmiga).
I knew little about this film going in: only a synopsis briefer than the one in the preceding paragraph. In particular, I did not know what genre the film fitted into and, consequently, I spent the opening half hour or more trying to figure out what sort of movie I was watching.
I am no wiser.
But I don't think it matters. It features comic elements and there are points when you chuckle, but it isn't a comedy (possibly more of a comedy of errors than an outright comedy). It might be classed as a drama except, to be perfectly frank, it is so totally improbable that it seems unfair to classify it as a drama. There are elements of romance except, again...
I never lost interest, and I was entertained throughout, but I left the cinema thoroughly bemused as to what exactly I had just watched.
I think the overall improbability is what works most strongly against the film, together with Keanu Reeves' Henry during the first half hour or more. Henry shows no reaction to anything, to the extent that I wondered if he was supposed to be simple minded. You never know what he is feeling or thinking and, therefore, what his motivations are and, given the plot line, this is a serious failing. And it's a failing in the conception of the character, not in Reeves' acting, because Henry suddenly starts reacting and behaving normally about a third of the way through.
James Caan is clearly having a great deal of fun as Max, and Vera Farmiga continues to impress by cutting a thoroughly believable Julie out of unlikely cloth. And Peter Stormare as a caricature Russian director is almost worth the price of admission on his own.
This movie is worth trying out if you fancy something which doesn't obviously fit any conventional stereotype.
I knew little about this film going in: only a synopsis briefer than the one in the preceding paragraph. In particular, I did not know what genre the film fitted into and, consequently, I spent the opening half hour or more trying to figure out what sort of movie I was watching.
I am no wiser.
But I don't think it matters. It features comic elements and there are points when you chuckle, but it isn't a comedy (possibly more of a comedy of errors than an outright comedy). It might be classed as a drama except, to be perfectly frank, it is so totally improbable that it seems unfair to classify it as a drama. There are elements of romance except, again...
I never lost interest, and I was entertained throughout, but I left the cinema thoroughly bemused as to what exactly I had just watched.
I think the overall improbability is what works most strongly against the film, together with Keanu Reeves' Henry during the first half hour or more. Henry shows no reaction to anything, to the extent that I wondered if he was supposed to be simple minded. You never know what he is feeling or thinking and, therefore, what his motivations are and, given the plot line, this is a serious failing. And it's a failing in the conception of the character, not in Reeves' acting, because Henry suddenly starts reacting and behaving normally about a third of the way through.
James Caan is clearly having a great deal of fun as Max, and Vera Farmiga continues to impress by cutting a thoroughly believable Julie out of unlikely cloth. And Peter Stormare as a caricature Russian director is almost worth the price of admission on his own.
This movie is worth trying out if you fancy something which doesn't obviously fit any conventional stereotype.