'Henry's Crime' doesn't make sense

"Are you kidding?" asks con man Max (James Caan), eyes widening. "This is your plan? An old cartoon in a pissoir?"

Um, yep, that's the plan. Henry (Keanu Reeves), formerly Max's cellmate in prison while serving time for a bank robbery he didn't actually commit, has decided to go ahead and rob the bank in question, based on a floor plan of the building that he's found in a men's room of an adjoining restaurant. He's done the time, Henry reasons — why not do the crime? But he needs Max's help to devise a scheme to drill through the dressing-room wall of an adjacent theater, which according to the drawing is right next to the bank's vault — and which means getting Henry into the cast of "The Cherry Orchard."

Max is right: The plan doesn't make much sense, and neither does "Henry's Crime," an intermittently entertaining comedy/drama with a funny script and a fatal miscasting. Vera Farmiga is charming as Julie, a very self-aware actress with whom Henry gets involved (after sex, she asks dramatically, "Does this make me an accessory?"); Caan is a crusty delight as Max, a cavalier old-school fellow who prefers the more elegant title of "confidence man." But, in Reeves' usual fashion, Henry has a sleepy vagueness; you never believe that this guy could pull off a heist, let alone attract a woman as showy as Julie. "Go rob your bank," she says airily, and you wish she and Max would run off together — these characters deserve a movie of their own.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com