Here is a first look clip featuring Keanu Reeves and James Caan from Malcolm Venville’s “Henry’s Crime,” based on a script by “Anvil! The Story Of Anvil!” helmer Sacha Gervasi.
The film also co-stars Vera Farmiga and follows the story of an aimless road-toll attendant who decides to rob a bank for real after wrongfully serving three years for the crime. We described it as a “zany sounding rom-com with literary allusions, crime drama shades and a protagonist confronting the same major life-altering issues [as in ‘Anvil!’]” which comes across in the clip below particularly with the awesome ’70s musical cue that kicks it all off.
“It’s a twisted romantic comedy, very dark and funny and Keanu is the lead,” Gervasi explained to The Playlist last year, “[he] plays a Buffalo toll both attendant in the middle of an existential crisis.” Definitely sounds like an interesting role for Reeves, who jumped on board early as he championed ‘Anvil!’
The full TIFF synopsis and the clip is after the jump:
A gem of a comedy that consistently surprises, ‘Henry’s Crime’ boasts marquee stars playing beautifully between the hum of ensemble acting and bright flashes of movie-star thrills. Keanu Reeves plays Henry, an unfulfilled man in Buffalo, New York. He sleepwalks through his job at a highway toll booth and his drab life at home. When he stumbles across the scene of an armed robbery, it’s no surprise that he’s swept up by the police, who mistake him for one of the robbers. Unable to muster the spirit to put up a fight, Henry soon finds himself behind bars.
Luckily, his cellmate is Max (James Caan), a career criminal who teaches Henry a thing or two about how to take what you want from life. By the time Henry finishes his sentence, he’s a new man. Now he figures that since he did the time, he might as well do the crime. So Henry and Max decide to rob a bank. Just then, he’s hit by a car. Out pops Julie (Vera Farmiga), the local Buffalo lottery girl from TV. It just so happens she’s also an amateur actress.
It’s here that Henry’s Crime leaps into the staccato rhythms of romantic comedy. The best way into the bank vault is to dig a tunnel from the old theatre across the street. But the theatre is occupied by a small company rehearsing a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in which Julie is, coincidentally, starring. So although Henry has never acted before, he has to find a way to join the cast, get the money and win the girl
“Henry’s Crime” premieres at TIFF where it will hopefully find a distributor and see a release likely sometime in 2011. [TIFF]
