Even if you love movies, we forgive you if you have crime drama fatigue. There are so many of them. That’s why a good one has to do a lot to stand out, to distinguish itself from all the cops and robbers in other films. Amazon MGM Studios’ Crime 101 does that quite well. This is thanks to a talented cast, a satisfying resolution, and an effective sense of place.
Chris Hemsworth plays Mike Davis, who has built a life for himself as a high-class jewel thief. He is skilled and operates based on certain principles. However, he also wants that one final score, which is the goal of pretty much every onscreen thief. Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) is tracking the robber who works along the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles. But Mike is meticulous about not leaving DNA or hurting anyone, so Lou doesn’t have a high chance of catching him.
Things change when Mike decides that the next heist his fence, Money (Nick Nolte), wants him to do doesn’t feel right. Money hires someone else to do the heist. This young biker (Barry Keoghan) is disturbed and violent, and though Mike has moved on to another idea with the help of insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry), a confrontation between all involved is inevitable.
All of this is interesting because Crime 101 allows the superb actors to inhabit a story that makes you care about the lead characters and uses its setting to create a strong atmosphere. As an example of its genre, this film is not a pioneering crime drama, but it is a good one.
MORE: If you’re interested in another crime drama, read our review of The Rip!
“You have the power to create all you desire out of nothing.”
The first thing I want to address about this film is the acting. The roles are perfectly cast, with Ruffalo and Berry particularly suited to their characters. Ruffalo can play a disheveled policeman in his sleep at this point. The film presents Sharon as pulled together and unflappable, which Berry excels at. But the other actors add a lot to the entertainment value of this film, too. Mike is a criminal, but it is vital that we root for him. Hemsworth is a big part of the reason why we do.
As you watch the plot unfold, you don’t want Mike to get caught, but you also want Lou to succeed. Lou’s instincts about the techniques of the thief he’s tracking are impressive, and he doesn’t get enough respect in the department. His boss says he doesn’t have a high “clearance rate” of cases. Mike and Lou don’t come face-to-face until late in the film, but when these two Avengers co-stars share the screen again, it’s worth the wait.
Berry, meanwhile, gets some meaty material involving ageism at her job that she tears into like the Oscar winner she is. There’s a nice chemistry to her work with both Hemsworth and Ruffalo here, too, in different ways. Keoghan also demonstrates his ease with this type of emotionally unstable character. His final scene is especially outstanding. Besides all these performers, talent like Corey Hawkins, Nick Nolte, Monica Barbaro, and Jennifer Jason Leigh fill the secondary roles. The cast of this film couldn’t be better.
MORE: How about diving into a completely different genre and reading Everything We Know About You, Me, & Tuscany?
“There comes a moment when you realize you don’t have as much time as you thought.”
Another accomplishment of this film is the way the setting is tied into the plot. The way Los Angeles mixes great wealth and dire poverty provides an atmosphere that fits a story like this perfectly. Director Bart Layton also wrote the screenplay, which is based on a novella by Don Winslow, and he takes care to create parallels between characters through both writing and editing. Cutting between different characters in certain moments really works. It stresses similarities or highlights contrasts, whichever the narrative calls for, and I found this element of the film very engaging.
I also invested in the subplot of Mike’s cautious romance with Barbaro’s character Maya. Sometimes, the romantic storyline in films like this can feel like the writers included it because they thought people would expect it and not because it serves a separate purpose. I think the interactions with Maya flesh out Mike as a character in important ways. Their first conversation is memorable because you realize Mike is awkwardly flirting, and since we’ve already seen him with a prostitute, it’s clear he needs the emotional growth that a real relationship would give him. I guess his line of work is an obstacle to love, even when you look like Chris Hemsworth!
I always feel like when a film knows how deliver an ending that satisfies the audience, that says good things about the storytelling. The resolutions for the main characters here pleased me. If you spend the entire film on their side, you want to leave them at a place that feels right, and that’s how I felt at the end of this film. Crime 101 does the crime drama right in a lot of ways. The cast, the setting, and the story lend a familiar genre details that are worth watching.
4 stars out of 5
Crime 101 is now playing in theaters.
