Movie star Keanu Reeves, director Malcolm Venville, and producer Lemore Syvan met with local leaders and media after another day of filming "Henry's Crime" in downtown Buffalo on Wednesday. "Great people and great support," Reeves said of his time here.
Keanu spoke about how friendly Buffalo has been to the crew, and reveled what made them choose this area to shoot part of his latest movie. "We were looking for... a place that had a past and was kind of moving into the future and transition itself, and Buffalo was the place," Reeves said
The film crew received a special honor from Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown as he proclaimed the week of December 14th, 2009 as Henry's Crime week for our city and county. Mayors from other local cities where filming will take place, like Niagara Falls and Kenmore, also brought gifts for the film crew including winter hats since it has been so cold here. Keanu poetically explained why they're filming during winter, saying it helps to enhance the romance of the movie. "Well in the cold of winter, one welcomes the needs and cherishes the warm heart of romance even more."
Keanu also revealed more about what this film is all about. "His name is Henry... now our story is morally and ethically challenged because Henry decides when he comes out of jail to rob the bank that he already went to jail for robbing."
The main character, Henry, works at a toll booth, is in his 40's, and is living an unsatisfied life. One day he's driving with a friend to what he thinks is a softball game, and his friend has some people riding with them in the car. Henry's friend says they need to stop at an ATM for beer money. But when they get to the bank, the group ends up trying to rob the bank while Henry waits unsuspectingly in the car. Henry is the one who gets caught and is sent to jail. He meets a fellow jailbird, who is in there for life. The guy tells Henry "you did the time, mine as well have done the crime". Henry thinks about it more and when he gets out of jail he decides to rob the bank. The location of the bank's vault is connected to a theater through an underground tunnel. Henry ends up being part of a play at that theater in order to get access to the tunnel and at one point is split between being in the play and robbing the bank. Meantime he falls in love and in the end has to decide to either finish robbing the bank or be with her.
Buffalo is a perfect location for this movie according to the production crew, because of the real underground tunnels the city has, and all the toll booths.
Economically the film has brought in more temporary jobs for locals and the decision to come here may not have happened if it weren't for the state's tax credit for filmmakers. "The New York State tax credit was huge news for New York filmmakers such as myself, because that meant that actually we could be here," Lemore Syvan, the producer of Henry's Crime, said. "Because usually it's very hard to convince financers to stay in New York. I would not be in New York State probably."
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