‘Crime 101’ Is an Enjoyably Moody Exercise in Michael Mann Lite
Bart Layton’s new Los Angeles-set thriller moves with the cool precision of a well-planned heist and the lingering melancholy of coastal noir. While the film borrows heavily from a familiar crime-movie grammar, it still offers satisfying setpieces, a steady emotional core, and a trio of performances that keep the mechanics from feeling entirely derivative. The film opened in the U. S. on February 13 (ET).
Stylish mechanics, familiar lineage
From the first carefully choreographed robbery, the film announces its priorities: meticulous preparation, clean execution and the obsessive control of a professional thief. The title’s numerical nod doubles as a road motif — robberies staged along a well-known California route — and the coastline repeatedly returns as a motif, a dreamed-of refuge and the backdrop to the characters’ longings. Those beach shots and ocean-view apartments give the movie a defined visual register, but they also make its influences obvious. The pacing, the emphasis on tradecraft and the cool, nocturnal Los Angeles photography all place the film in a lineage of urban heist dramas.
That familiarity is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the film delivers pleasures fans of the genre expect: a tense opening caper, a prolonged chase that crackles with kinetic energy, and a series of little procedural delights about how valuables move and how insurance values are assessed. On the other hand, the movie sometimes feels more like a pastiche than a fresh statement. Certain narrative conveniences — the choice of a major freeway as an obvious getaway route, or underused subplots that flicker and go dark — keep the film from achieving the thematic sweep its visuals promise.
Actors anchor the plot’s moral circling
The central magnet is Chris Hemsworth as Mike, a charismatic, tightly controlled thief who prefers to avoid violence and treats each job as a study in humane efficiency. Hemsworth’s performance is a study in restraint: he’s affable when needed, guarded always, and persuasive as a man who keeps his life minimized to avoid attachment. Mark Ruffalo’s Detective Lou is the sentimental counterpoint — a veteran cop who admires the thief he’s chasing and believes there’s a single, methodical mind behind the spate of robberies. Ruffalo brings a weary intelligence to a character who could have been a mere procedural function.
Halle Berry rounds out the central triangle as Sharon, an insurance claims adjuster whose professional curiosity pulls her into both men’s orbits. The film uses her role to interrogate value — not just of jewels but of reputation, risk and worth. Supporting turns add texture: a leathery mentor figure provides criminal history, while a younger, more volatile rival rattles the thief’s equilibrium and raises the stakes for everyone involved. Some subplots and characters receive less development than they deserve, which leaves a few narrative threads feeling abbreviated.
Where it succeeds and where it stumbles
For much of its runtime the movie earns its runtime through craft: controlled acting, deliberate mise-en-scène, and an appetite for small, revealing moments. The heist sequences are judiciously staged and the film’s Los Angeles is tangible — sun-baked coastlines, night-lit freeways, quiet apartments that double as moral tableaux. Yet the film's ambition outstrips its reach at times. Promising diversions vanish without payoff, and the script occasionally opts for tidy resolutions over messier, more interesting complications.
All told, the film functions best when it leans into mood and character rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. If it feels like a lighter, home-cooked variation on a familiar blueprint, it also offers a polished, entertaining ride led by performers who make the moral ambiguities worth watching.
