As its generic title might suggest, Bart Layton’s “Crime 101” often plays like a remix of familiar tropes from crime genre classics. Thankfully, its strong direction and all-star cast make it a strong, well-made entry in the tradition, even if it doesn’t break any new ground and ends with a slightly undercooked finale.
The film follows Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), an Los Angeles jewel thief who follows a rigid set of rules while carrying out his heists. He refrains from using physical force, never leaves any DNA evidence and always escapes on the eponymous Route 101 highway. On his trail is detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), whose rogue theories and by-the-books rigidity make him unpopular in his department. For a new heist, Mike begins tracking Sharon Combs (Halle Berry), an insurance broker with information that could help him walk away with millions.
Hemsworth plays against type as an ice cold but surprisingly vulnerable protagonist. He’s tall, muscular and impossibly handsome, but he struggles to maintain eye contact or keep a conversation going. He has no family or friends, passing evenings with escorts rather than a wife. His social awkwardness evokes the energy Ryan Gosling brought to “Drive” as another taciturn criminal defined by a strict personal code.
Ruffalo is slightly typecast, having played similar beleaguered cops in “Collateral,” “Zodiac,” “Shutter Island” and more. It is perhaps emblematic of the derivative nature of “Crime 101” to see him in such well-trodden territory; the police investigation plotline also never really develops into anything more than usual crime movie clichés.
Berry gets more to do as a dedicated insurance employee who keeps pushing for a promotion to partner after more than a decade at her company, only to be repeatedly strung along instead of promoted. Sharon has long been used as a pretty face to close deals with sleazy rich clients, but she finds herself aging out of that role in middle age. The way her bosses dismiss her is exactly what Mike picks up on, and it’s why he can see she might be willing to turn on them.
Like many other L.A.-based crime films, “Crime 101” is most indebted to the work of Michael Mann and specifically his seminal 1995 crime classic “Heat.” Mike’s completely unadorned beachfront house clearly evokes that film’s iconic ethos uttered by Robert De Niro — “don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner” — and at one point Mike proves he lives by it, uprooting and moving with startling speed.
Like “Heat,” Layton’s film is sprawling and crowded with subplots and side players, but it handles them far less deftly. It reuses familiar storylines — a new love interest who tests the protagonist’s rules, the cop’s marital turmoil, a loose-cannon crew member who puts the whole operation at risk — yet most of it feels half-developed. Some characters simply vanish without payoff, and other beats lead nowhere. At 139 minutes, “Crime 101” lands in an awkward middle ground, too long to be a lean thriller but too short to earn the sweep of an epic.
Still, when Layton focuses on the meticulous setup and realistic follow-through of each job, the movie becomes tight, tense and sharply entertaining. One car-on-motorcycle chase recalls “To Live and Die in LA” in its staging, even if it lacks the manic, off-kilter charge of Friedkin’s film.
“Crime 101” is almost too nice to its characters. It doesn’t necessarily need a crowd-pleasing action set-piece on the scale of the bank shootout in “Heat,” but without that kind of catharsis it could have used the harsher, more punishing bite of something like “Dragged Across Concrete.” Instead, it stays tasteful and restrained in a way that blunts the tension. The finale in particular feels strangely contained and small-scale for how much the film has been winding up, hinging on a last-minute character turn that doesn’t feel earned, so the ending plays less like a climax than a dampened wrap-up.
Even with its flaws, “Crime 101” has an old-school appeal. It isn’t revelatory, and it doesn’t pretend to be — it’s a slick, well-shot crime thriller that runs familiar tracks with confidence and style. The film is also elevated by its cast. Hemsworth, Ruffalo and Berry give the material more texture than it requires, grounding the movie’s archetypes in something closer to human behavior. It’s a welcome treat in 2026 to see multiple A-list stars in a genre film without spaceships or spandex.
The awkward plotting and lackluster ending may hold the film back from real greatness, but what comes before is sturdy, smartly made entertainment for grownups that follows a familiar blueprint with unusual competence.
