‘Crime 101’ Review: Chris Hemsworth Brings the Heat in Michael Man-Influenced Actioner as Good as its Title is Bad [B+]

Chaos and order. Shown but not told specifics of crime and law enforcement. A stoic protagonist with an underfurnished, beach-adjacent apartment. These are ideas central to 1995’s Heat, Michael Mann’s bank robber masterpiece, but also to Crime 101, a film so indebted to perhaps the preeminent crime film ever made that Robert De Niro should probably get a portion of Chris Hemsworth’s profit share. That said, if you’re going to wear your influences on your sleeve, as director Bart Layton so clearly is, you may as well have great taste. Crime 101 is an incredibly effective, propulsive film both in spite of and because of its influences. The reality of the 21st century is that adult crime dramas (the good ones, anyway) have mostly moved to TV, with HBO seemingly cornering the market on dark tales of complex cops trying to solve nuanced transgressions with labyrinthian backgrounds. Crime 101 acts as a breath of fresh air, bringing breakneck stories of this ilk back to the big screen with thoughtful thrills and pop pleasures alike.

The film is more or less structured as the convergence of four seemingly disparate characters. Mike Davis, a detached thief, is deftly played by Chris Hemsworth, who has long been the best of his generation’s batch of perceived action stars. He’s so good, in fact, that he makes you believe someone who looks like Chris Hemsworth could be awkward around women. Halle Berry’s Sharon Colvin is a successful insurance broker trying to close the deal on an agreement with a tech mogul to reinforce her case to make partner at her firm. Berry is incredibly sturdy in what is the least showy role of the four ostensible co-leads, save for one moment of thematic catharsis late in the film. The obligatory detective is portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, whose presence can’t help but invoke Prestige TV’s most recent crime phenomenon, Task. The detective, Lou Lubesnick, is a bit of a schlub, in a failing marriage and more or less reviled by his fellow cops on account of his intense devotion to upholding the law rather than “playing along” with the minor-to-reprehensible insider manipulations of his colleagues. The final major player is Ormon, played by Layton regular Barry Keoghan, a burgeoning burglar sporting flashy motorcycle helmets and an itchy trigger finger. Ormon is the agent of chaos, the Wario to Mike’s Mario, reveling in violence and lacking the foresight to effectively stay clean.

For the first half of Crime 101’s fairly robust 140-minute runtime, these characters barely interact, only showing them as proverbial ships in the night, unknowingly sharing the screen for seconds on the streets of Los Angeles; threads intertwining without yet touching. Through it all, Hemsworth remains the true center of the story around which all other characters revolve. Mike is more or less a ghost in the eyes of those around him. His closest relationship is with his handler, played by Nick Nolte, sounding as though his only sustenance has been bits of gravel for the last several years, which works quite well in this context. In a chance encounter after a particularly tricky job, Mike gets in a fender bender with a beautiful personal assistant played by Monica Barbaro and he starts to envision a path to normalcy. This is the part of the film that most blatantly brings Heat to mind, from character motivations all the way down to shot compositions. In Heat, Neal McCauley’s great “hero moment” is a panning shot when he finally opens himself up to the potential of emotional connection. The same idea is used in Crime 101, though Hemsworth is treated with a slow zoom, presumably because his shoulders were too broad for the camera operator to successfully pan around.

The fact that the romance thread is even 80% as successful as Heat’s is really a testament to Hemsworth’s performance, Barbaro’s star trait of seemingly having chemistry with whoever is across from her on screen, and Layton’s clear sense of empathy for everyone inhabiting the world of the film. It also possesses just a bit more of a “junk” sensibility (meant lovingly with the smallest bit of insult) that does detach it ever so slightly from Michael Man and a handful of other great 80s and 90s thrillers. A more recent film that comes to mind while watching Crime 101 is Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines. That film’s pretense and insistence on upending expectation in the second half actually end up being its downfall, whereas Crime 101’s adherence to the blueprint allows it to operate with efficient familiarity, from a structural perspective.

What can’t be faked or copied is tension, which Crime 101 has in abundance. The pulsing score from electronic composer Blanck Mass sets the film in motion from the opening sequences and picks back up in just the right places to grab a stranglehold when it wants to. There is a patience and vibrancy to the filmmaking that feels fresh, with clever uses of GoPros and camera mounts to give a sense of motion even in scenes that would traditionally be static. Car doors and motorcycle helmets are rigged with cameras to create a sense of disorder as Mike struggles to maintain control over his present and future. Despite its classical construction, it is very much a piece of filmmaking of the modern age. That tracks, given Layton’s track record as a director. The Imposter, his 2012 breakthrough documentary, brought a sense of formal experimentation to the burgeoning world of true crime and American Animals, his 2018 narrative-documentary hybrid, came and went with a whimper but gets an A for boldness, if nothing else. His foray into traditional narrative filmmaking isn’t as audacious, but it does prove that Layton is a natural filmmaker. His sense for character and tone are apparent. 

Crime 101 thieves when it confronts the splintered morality of every character’s world. The most sympathetic character in the film is the classic black hat, played with great pathos by the star of Blackhat. Eric has a definitive code, which includes avoiding violence and ensuring that his scores are insured. Does that make him good? Absolutely not, but this is a film that is more interested in exploring the grey areas of morality. Sharon works for a parasitic organization led by despicable men and grapples with the effects of her actions. Detective Lou Lubesnick is confronted with the realities of the potential for fascistic action in American law enforcement and must decide if his moral code is compatible with the organization he has joined. Even Orman, the Waingro of this iteration of Heat, is given a backstory that at least makes you pause for two seconds when you consider his path to depravity.

Because of its penchant for imitation, it is hard to argue that Crime 101 will be remembered as some sort of action masterpiece, but its competence and thoughtfulness are not familiar to the last fifteen, or so, years of action cinema. This is a film that touches on a number of important topics, to varying degrees of success, like sexism in the corporate workplace, police corruption, and the lawlessness of the uberwealthy. Add to that a cast that includes bit players the likes of Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tate Donovan, and you have something that far transcends the run-of-the-mill work clogging the pipes of crime cinema in the 2020’s. This is a movie that deserves to be taken seriously. Derivation be damned, Crime 101 can stand on its own. If only they could do something about that title…

Grade: B+

Amazon MGM will release Crime 101 in theaters on February 13.

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Jay Ledbetter

Jay Ledbetter is a finance manager by day, film critic by night living in Atlanta, Georgia. He began writing about film in 2013 and is not afraid to confront people of all ages if they are too loud in the theater.

In addition to his work at Awards Watch, Jay has written and hosted podcasts for Film Inquiry and InSession Film. He is an auteur obsessive, regularly diving deep into the filmographies of celebrated filmmakers.

Jay is a proud member of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle and the Georgia Film Critics Association. You can follow him on Twitter @MrJayLedbetter.

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