CRIME 101:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH, MARK RUFFALO HEIST FILM IS ONE COOL RIDE!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4
MGM
Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, and Mark Ruffalo in Crime 101
Chris Hemsworth (The Cabin in the Woods, Rush, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) and Mark Ruffalo (Collateral, Spotlight, Poor Things) are back together, this time outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Crime 101, the new crime thriller from director Bart Layton (Banged Up Abroad, The Imposer, American Animals) based on the 2020 novella of the same name by Don Winslow. I mean, with leads like that, is it really a shock that I would end up seeing this film? One of them I even met in person, for God’s sake.
I’m not all that familiar with Bart Layton’s work outside of American Animals, but it seemed like he was giving us a cool, tense thriller, and yep, Crime 101 is that. I enjoyed this film quite a bit and found it an entertaining and gripping ride, though it isn’t constant action throughout; it’s a slow burn with a 2-hour and 20-minute runtime, and I was never bored during any of it.
The film is set in Los Angeles and follows elusive jewel thief Mike Davis (Hemsworth), whose string of heists on the 101 freeway has mystified police. When he eyes the perfect score, he crosses paths with insurance broker Sharon Combs (Halle Berry, X-Men franchise, Monster’s Ball, Die Another Day), and a relentless police detective, Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo), is closing in, thus raising the stakes even higher.
The film also stars Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Saltburn; who previously worked with Layton on American Animals) as Ormon, Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick, FUBAR, A Complete Unknown) as Mike’s love interest Maya, Corey Hawkins (The Walking Dead, Straight Outta Compton, Kong: Skull Island) as Det. Tillman, Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, The Hateful Eight) as Lou’s estranged wife Angie, Nick Nolte (48 Hrs., Hulk, Tropic Thunder) as Money, and Tate Donovan (Hercules, Good Night, and Good Luck, Argo) as Steven Monroe.
Overall, Crime 101 is a solid crime thriller and the far superior 2026 movie from Amazon MGM after the abysmal releases of Melania and Mercy. It’s a crime thriller that doesn’t focus entirely on action or intense violence (Though there are moments of that for sure), but its main focus is on the characters, and each one of them is interesting and compelling in their own rights particularly Hemsworth, Ruffalo, and Berry.
What I love about this movie is that it doesn’t paint any of the leads as the bad guy, not even Chris Hemsworth’s Mike, his character reminded me of Channing Tatum from Roofman where he is a criminal and stealing things, but he has a lot of charisma, is nonviolent during his crimes (Just like Tatum in Roofman), and just trying to make it in a shitty world while also having romantic interests in Monica Barbaro’s Maya, both have very good chemistry.
Mark Ruffalo as the police detective might actually be my favorite character in the film because he’s this man who’s clearly going through some shit, he’s separated from his wife, he’s a total shlub, taking up yoga coincidentally with Halle Berry, and is hellbent on solving this complicated string of crimes caused by Hemsworth. I was genuinely invested in his story arc throughout and wanted to see him bounce back in the end. The fact that it’s Mark Ruffalo playing him is just an added bonus because his charm fits perfectly with this character.
Halle Berry is also very good as the insurance broker who gets roped into Hemsworth and Ruffalo’s situations. She’s very witty and cunning while also adding a lot of credibility to this otherwise chaotic game of cat and mouse. Whether her side of the story intertwines with either one of them or she’s in the meeting room dealing with her shitty boss (I actually thought back to Send Help, which I reviewed recently as this was going down), Berry brings her A-game in one of my favorite performances of hers in a long time.
The performances around the board are great. Monica Barbaro as Hemsworth’s love interest, as mentioned earlier, Nick Nolte is hamming it up as an old underworld fence while managing to be both funny and threatening during his screen time. Jennifer Jason Leigh, who I absolutely adored in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, is given a pretty tragic role as Ruffalo’s ex-wife, with them trying to make this adjustment work, nowhere near as over-the-top and funny as her Hateful Eight character…and speaking of over the top.
Barry Keoghan is a fucking treasure in the film as this psychotic young biker criminal; he is having such a ball going crazy, hamming it up even more so than Nolte, and is absolutely relentless with his crimes. I’m actually starting to see him more and more as the Joker in the upcoming sequel to The Batman (2022). I think we’ll be in for a real treat if this is anything to go by.
The movie isn’t a constant shooty shooty bang bang with non-stop action scenes and car chases, and is more focused on the protagonists’ lives and the events leading up to the big heist, which is exhilarating in the last third. While there were timewhenre I did feel the runtime a bit, I was never taken out of the film because it is interesting and the characters are endearing.
But when there are action scenes, they’re pretty adrenaline-pumping, especially when there’s a car chase, these raw, shaky, and tense chases, whether it’s Hemsworth being chased by police or pursuing Keoghans’s Ormon’s motorcycle later on in the film. It’s not really trying to be a straight-up action film, but these sequences are very exciting to watch, especially in a theater.
Yeah, Crime 101’s a good time,e though it likely won’t be remembered nearly as much as something like Michael Mann’s Heat. I still highly recommend checking this out if you’re a fan of the genre or any of the film’s cast members; it’s one sleek, tense, and entertaining ride.
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