Crime 101 review: Hemsworth-led heist thriller revs up style, leans on familiar gear
Bart Layton’s second feature is a high-gloss, high-stakes robbery picture that leans hard into precision and atmosphere. Anchored by Chris Hemsworth as a fastidious jewel thief and Mark Ruffalo as the dogged detective trailing him, Crime 101 has drawn early attention for its sleek execution and unmistakable echoes of Michael Mann’s Way of the West-influenced crime cinema. The film opens 12 February in Australia and 13 February in the US and UK (ET).
A slick, methodical heist built on Route 101
Crime 101 maps a string of robberies along California’s Pacific Coast Highway, turning geography into motif: each job is another stop on US-101. Layton keeps the narrative compact and controlled, favoring coolly composed frames, crisp digital photography and a pacing that prefers simmer to sizzle. When Layton does punch the accelerator, the car chases and action set pieces deliver genuine jolts — not blockbuster excess, but taut, effective bursts that underscore the film’s sense of craft.
Hemsworth’s Mike is the archetypal professional: immaculate, measured and almost surgical in his methods. He steals with the ballerina-like grace of someone who treats illicit work as choreography. Opposite him, Ruffalo’s Lou embodies the weary, single-minded detective trope — a hunch-driven cop who pieces together the pattern when others dismiss him. That cat-and-mouse framing gives the film its momentum and emotional core.
Strong cast, familiar contours and occasional moral fuzziness
The supporting ensemble sharpens the central conflicts. A weathered mentor figure — Money, played by an authoritative elder — complicates Mike’s plan when he brings in Ormon, a volatile young criminal whose flashy motorbike and trigger-happy instincts threaten to upend the carefully managed operations. Halle Berry’s insurance adjuster emerges as one of the film’s most human elements: sidelined at work and pushed toward desperate choices, she brings an urgency that offsets the heist’s cool detachment. Monica Barbaro provides a quieter domestic grounding as Mike’s girlfriend, whose ignorance of his life amplifies his inner tension.
Critically, the film earns praise for performance and production design but draws critique on narrative depth. The film’s moral observations — including passing nods to homelessness and social marginalisation — feel perfunctory at times, more backdrop than interrogation. Where the movie hints at broader social commentary, it often retreats to genre mechanics, leaving some reviewers feeling it clings to established tropes rather than pushing them. Comparisons to classic, oceanic crime epics are inevitable; Crime 101 borrows the aesthetic and procedural discipline of those films but stops short of their tragic grandeur.
Who will it satisfy?
For viewers seeking a grown-up, well-acted heist picture with a strong central pairing and moments of genuine tension, Crime 101 is likely to satisfy. It’s a polished entertainer with appetite for neat execution rather than reinvention. Audiences looking for an expansive moral reckoning or a subversive reinvention of the genre may find it conservative in ambition. Ultimately, the film’s strengths lie in its performances, craftsmanship and the pleasure of watching a meticulously planned operation begin to unravel.
Released 12 February in Australia and 13 February in the US and UK (ET), Crime 101 stakes its claim as a modern, stylish riff on familiar heist territory — less a radical new lesson than a finely taught refresher course.
