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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(from Moving Pictures, spring issue, 2011)

There are few actors more dependable than James Caan, and his performance in “Henry’s Crime” again bears that out. An Oscar nominee for his indelible portrayal of Sonny Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and a multiple Golden Globe nominee for memorable turns in such films as “The Gambler” and “Funny Lady,” Caan gives a tour de force performance as the streetwise ex-con Max in Malcolm Venville’s romantic comedy. Caan and Venville, who previously directed the film “44 Inch Chest” and is an accomplished photographer as well, sat down with Moving Pictures in Toronto to talk about “Henry’s Crime,” in which an aimless toll collector (Keanu Reeves) is sent to prison for a bank robbery he didn’t commit and then, after his release, sets out to rob the bank for real.

MP: When you’ve got guys like Jimmy Caan and Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga and Keanu Reeves, all of whom are accomplished at a certain level, does it become more of a collaborative process rather than a dictatorial directorial style?

Venville: Oh, yeah. Really collaborative. You know, it’s just a very free and easy experience. It was effortless for me, you know, because the less direction I have to give the better, you know. I just want to sit back and enjoy them, you know, and just let it roll, let it ride. It was … like jumping into a really beautiful car. It’s easy.

MP: Is it easier directing a photo shoot or spending a great amount of time, say a year, devoted to a film project?

Venville: A film is really demanding. You know, it’s really intensely demanding, more demanding than — I mean, being a photographer is such a great lifestyle, because you don’t have to do any meetings. [Laughs]

MP: We were kind of joking about whether there’s a hidden message in the film. Does prison make criminals out of innocent men, or does it make innocent men out of criminals?

Caan: That’s a good question, and the answer is yes to both. I mean, there are a lot of people who don’t belong in jail, you know, and there are a lot of people who definitely do belong in jail, who don’t — you know, who aren’t. So, yeah.

MP: Malcolm?

Venville: Well, you know, in the jail in the movies, it’s really more about a folk tale. You know, it’s more about Jimmy’s character chose to be in jail, you know, because of his fears. You know, fear of living and fear of feeling.

Caan: Well, to me it was like, you know, if you’re — and we added this scene later, in the tunnel, where I said, “I can be who I want to be.” You know what I mean? Because, you know, I know some people, not many, but I know a couple who are really — they call them street crazy. The guys are jail crazy. I mean, you know, they get their three meals a day … and a cot. It was a lot more than that. … And so I found — I mean, for my character it was, like, yeah, I told him, you know, I was a karate expert, and I studied philosophy … but not any harmful stuff. So I found the comfort not only in that, but, you know, I had three meals. You know, what’s the big deal? And I had fun with everybody. You know, everybody kind of liked Max because they weren’t sure if he was full of crap or not.

Venville: Sure. Sure.

Caan: But it wasn’t harmful stuff. And the thing that … I hoped would come out was that. … [Are] your dreams your life or your destiny?

Venville: Your dream is your truth is your destiny.

Caan: Yeah. So I added a line, which Malcolm let me do. I said, “Oh, you know, I studied all the great philosophers,” you know, and I named them all, and one of course was the wrong name. And I said, “And my conclusion was,” and I came up with this line. Now, you don’t know if it’s crap or not. But at the end, I think the beauty of it is that whether he made it up or it’s real, it worked. I mean, you know what I mean? All the nonsense, I mean, you know, that’s kind of the funny thing, because it actually worked. He believed it.

Venville: I think that Jimmy took the tragedy of this guy and made it funny.

Caan: But you know what I mean.

Venville: Yeah.

Caan: I mean, the idea that if it was baloney it didn’t matter, because it worked.

Venville: Sure.

Caan: He bit for it.

Venville: Sure.

MP: But if you told people all the things you’d done in reality, it would probably sound like a load of baloney as well.

Caan: True.

MP: So it’s a very personal approach.

Caan: No, but this was more in terms of, you know, philosophy, and it wasn’t — they weren’t bad lies. I mean, they were harmless lies. They were meant to be helpful. He meant to nurture this guy, but even like when we had to go to the bank, I mean, I made this [story up] — it didn’t hurt anybody, but I had to get into the bank, so I tell this guy some story. There was no harm in it, you know; nobody got hurt by it. And when I first met Vera, I tell her, oh, I did all this theater work, and just to get in [to the theater adjacent to the bank]. … He used it to, you know, accomplish the mission.

Photo: James Caan; photo by Scott McDermott