If you had to compare it to a Russian classic, Malcolm Venville's mild comedy about a nobody (Keanu Reeves) who gets busted for a crime he didn't commit might suggest half-baked Dostoevsky or lightweight Gogol. But not Chekhov. Nonetheless, The Cherry Orchard is the play being rehearsed in the theater across the street from the bank that Henry was falsely convicted of robbing, and that he decides to knock over for real after being released from prison. "If you do the time," former cellmate and current accessory Max (James Caan) jokes, "do the crime." The theater harbors an old tunnel to the vault; to gain access to it, Henry gets himself cast in the play as Lopakhin. "He's a natural," says Julie (Vera Farmiga), apparently without irony. She's the production's Madame Ranevskaya, and she falls for Henry after running him over with her car. Sure, very Chekhovian. Just like the film's moral of fulfilling your dreams — not exactly how the play turned out.
