Crime 101 review: A sleek, Mann-adjacent heist that thrives on style and starpower
Bart Layton’s latest leans hard into craft and cool: a polished, adult-oriented robbery drama that puts Chris Hemsworth’s measured thief at the wheel and Mark Ruffalo’s dogged detective on the trail. Crime 101 is propulsive where it needs to be — particularly in two well-staged car chases — and otherwise content to operate in a moody, deliberate groove.
A Mann-esque canvas, but its own engine
The film openly courts the world-weariness and procedural precision associated with classic LA heist cinema, taking visual and tonal cues without attempting a full imitation. Layton adapts a Don Winslow novella and keeps things tidy: robberies staged along the US-101 form a pattern that one persistent detective begins to map. The aesthetic is crisp, the cinematography favoring cool digital clarity and night-time gloss, and Layton paces the set pieces judiciously so the quieter, character-driven beats have room to breathe.
Performances anchor an otherwise familiar plot
Hemsworth plays Mike, the archetypal smooth operator — immaculately groomed, eerily controlled, and as anxious about minute forensic traces as he is about the big picture. It’s a welcome turn of restraint from an actor more often associated with broad physicality. Opposite him, Ruffalo brings a hangdog humanity to Detective Lou: part Columbo charm, part stubborn, single-minded investigator. Their interplay supplies the film’s emotional throughline.
Supporting players add texture. A grizzled mentor figure looms as the connective tissue tying Mike’s past to his present; a volatile newcomer on a motorbike injects combustible energy and threatens to upend the thief’s carefully calibrated rhythm. An insurance adjuster pulled into the orbit of the investigation offers a grounded, sympathetic subplot that adds moral complexity and helps the film avoid a purely macho parade of heists.
Where Crime 101 hits the gas — and where it idles
When Layton leans into kinetic action, the film rewards attention: two car sequences deliver real jolts, and the choreography of the robberies is frequently elegant, bordering on balletic in its precision. The movie’s methodical tempo suits its world of routine criminal professionalism and bureaucratic indifference.
Yet the picture sometimes slides into familiar territory. Motifs and character types — the mentor, the hotheaded replacement, the secretive lover — are serviceable but rarely surprising. Attempts at social observation, such as fleeting glimpses of urban hardship, feel cursory rather than integral, and a few narrative conveniences blunt the stakes when the plot pivots from precision to panic.
Still, the film mostly succeeds on the strength of its craftsmanship and its cast. It doesn’t reach the operatic scope of the great heist epics, but it doesn’t pretend to: Crime 101 is content to be a tight, stylish adult thriller that places cool technique over sweeping tragedy. For viewers who want an intelligent, well-acted robbery picture that favors mood and method over unremitting spectacle, this will be a satisfying ride.
Crime 101 opens on February 13, 2026 (ET) in the US and UK, and on February 12 in Australia.
