Crime 101 review — bracing heist drama finds echoes of Michael Mann
Crime 101, Bart Layton’s lean new crime thriller, roars into circulation as a tightly wound jewel-heist picture anchored by Chris Hemsworth’s controlled, almost clinical thief. With Mark Ruffalo as the dogged detective on his trail and a supporting turn from Halle Berry, the film trades in moody precision rather than breakneck spectacle, and will be in cinemas from February 13, 2026 (ET) in the US and UK and February 12, 2026 (ET) in Australia.
Stylistic debts and a modern Heat vibe
Layton’s latest strips away the meta-textured devices of his earlier work and leans on pure genre mechanics: surveillance, preparation and a robber’s obsessive attention to detail. The film’s aesthetic — nighttime Los Angeles, sleek black cars, quiet procedural choreography — sits closely alongside the template set by one of the great modern heist films. It borrows Mann-like precision without replicating the director’s signature wide-shot convoys and military-scale set pieces, instead keeping the action intimate and taut.
That restraint is a strength. The heists breathe like tightly rehearsed dances, executed with a nonviolent, almost surgical calm. When things go wrong, the contrast between composure and chaos is where the film earns its dramatic charge. Layton’s camera lingers on the small mechanical acts of crime — checking locks, wiping fingerprints, timing movements — which gives the movie its clinical cool while also building suspense.
Performances power the tension
Hemsworth turns in one of his most controlled efforts, playing Mike as a polished professional who prioritises the long game: the so-called walkaway money. His Mike is neurotic in the way of seasoned criminals who obsess over contingencies, and the performance reframes Hemsworth’s usual physicality into a study of paranoia and precision.
Opposite him, Ruffalo brings a ragged, trench-coat humanity to the role of the detective who spots the pattern — robberies staged along Route 101 — and clings to his single honest theory despite scepticism from superiors. The dynamic between thief and cop supplies a large portion of the film’s emotional pull, a cat-and-mouse rhythm that avoids melodrama in favour of weary determination.
Halle Berry’s insurance agent provides more than plot convenience: she’s a figure of frustrated ambition who gets pulled into Mike’s scheme, and Berry gives the part a sharp, indignant energy. Nick Nolte’s leathery mentor and Barry Keoghan’s volatile younger criminal add texture: Nolte as the old-school fence who once rescued Mike from foster care, Keoghan as a livewire whose swagger threatens the careful balance Mike maintains.
Where the film hits and where it stumbles
Crime 101 mostly succeeds as an adult-oriented, methodical thriller. It avoids spectacle for mood, and that posture feels deliberate and, in many scenes, effective. The movie’s moral framing — a glance at LA’s homeless and the underside of the city — sometimes reads perfunctory, a shorthand for social context rather than sustained commentary. A few beats land more as signpost than depth, which undercuts attempts at broader social point-making.
Still, the film’s pleasures are clear: the choreography of theft, the cat-and-mouse between Hemsworth and Ruffalo, and the supporting cast’s capacity to steer empathy even when characters are on opposite sides of the law. It doesn’t match the epic emotional sweep of the biggest crime epics, but as a compact, stylish heist drama it leaves a sizzling streak on the tarmac.
Crime 101 opens in the US and UK on February 13, 2026 (ET) and in Australia on February 12, 2026 (ET).
