Movies Made Here: Henry's Crime (2010)

Wake up, Keanu!, I often want to scream at the near-comatose actor as he drags his weary self through so many roles I never quite understand he won in the first place.

But here in our made-in-Tarrytown/Buffalo heist movie, Henry's Crime, now out on DVD, Reeves is, lucky enough for him, supposed to be pretty numb. At least in the beginning. He’s Henry, the sorry toll booth worker who doesn’t love his wife and lets life kind of wash over him until he’s in prison for a bank robbery he didn’t commit (which is preferable to his outside life for a while).

When Henry gets out after his stint there, he has conveniently lost the wife and finds himself in a coffee shop bathroom across from a theater and the bank in question. Here on the bathroom wall (which, my husband tells me, is actually the men's room; it did seem like a lot of urinals for such a tiny café) he sees an old article on the wall about a tunnel once connecting the Orpheus Theater to the bowels of the big stone bank.

Enter the Music Hall where much of the movie takes place. There’s an actress playing the lead in the Cherry Orchard in rehearsal and of course Henry and Lead Actress Julie fall fast in love. Henry has decided though that he’s going to really rob the bank this time, on purpose, new love or not. It’s not about the money, we hear again and again, but we don’t really know what it’s about. Surely Henry could do better than rob a bank if he wants to take control of his life, but who are we, or his beautiful girlfriend for that matter, to tell him so.

Girlfriend is the mesmerizing Vera Farmiga, who, strangely enough is supposed to be the “cold” one in the relationship, afraid to be real in love or acting. It’s Julie though who comes across as so fluid and astounding in so many scenes while Henry remains stiff Henry. Bjorn Olsson, Director of the Music Hall, agreed on both counts, though he stood up for Reeves' uh...abilities.

“I think his appeal, apart from just looks, is that he is a bit of a blank canvas," Olsson said. "He was very much like his screen persona in person, very low key, would walk around town without any 'airs,' buy a cup of coffee or cigarettes and hang out outside, not minding if people talked to him, etc. I think he has a certain kind of honesty in what he does, but once it goes into character acting he doesn't have a lot of gears to shift into, I agree."

The crew had the run of the Music Hall, which looks wonderful in the movie, even when they are banging down its wall (I'm sure this was not the real wall). They used the dressing rooms, rest room and stage, all in the course of a few weeks in January. "Although the tunnel was fake, maybe we'll have people come look for it," Olsson said.

All household-name American actors aside, Olsson was most interested in his fellow Swede. “The actor I talked to the most was Peter Stormare (The theater director in the film)," Olsson said. "He stopped by some time before the shoot started, and talked to Karina [Music Hall manager].She called me over and said ‘Bjorn, there's a Swedish guy here,’ which was really funny, because she had no idea who he was, but since he is a very famous man in Sweden, both as a stage actor and a move star, I obviously recognized him instantly. I didn't know he was going to be in the movie, so it seemed really weird that he would just walk into my theater unannounced.”

Tarrytown as Buffalo is also a bit weird. Some of the footage of the city center is indeed downtown Buffalo, flat and corporate with wide streets. But then we zoom in on the sharp slope of quaintville coffee shop (, transformed) and the Music Hall and it never quite connects in our mental map to the bank that is supposedly adjacent. There were also scenes shot at the  (which got to keep its name and identity intact), and our impressive corner bank (now the Citi) – though the movie used this not as the film’s bank but for its second floor and interior shots of Julie’s handsome apartment.

Of course with filming on Main Street comes a fair amount of disgruntled shopkeepers and a worse parking situation than usual. “There was some friction with a few Main Street merchants, too," Olsson said. “It's a never ending debate down here, if the town should allow filming or not, and some people are dead set against it. For us, it's a great shot in the arm, and tons of fun, too, especially in the dead of winter.”