Review: Crime 101 Is a Stylish, Moody Heist That Feels Like Michael Mann Lite
Bart Layton’s new Los Angeles thriller Crime 101 leans hard on atmosphere and precision. Anchored by a controlled performance from Chris Hemsworth and supported by Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry, the film serves up polished jewel-heist set pieces, coastal imagery and unmistakable nods to a certain late-20th-century crime cinema — all while stopping short of the sweeping ambitions those touchstones achieved.
A moody, Los Angeles-set heist with a magnetic central thief
Crime 101 follows Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), a methodical jewel thief who stages clean, minimally violent robberies of jewelry transports and storefronts. The film foregrounds Mike’s meticulous planning and near-ascetic personal life: an ocean-view apartment, few possessions and an almost antiseptic approach to criminal work. Hemsworth plays him as a charismatic savant — formal, quietly charming and emotionally contained — a performance that steers the movie through much of its momentum.
The narrative threads together Mike, LAPD detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) and insurance adjuster Sharon Coombs (Halle Berry). Lou, a veteran cop convinced a single mastermind is behind the string of robberies along the 101, is as dogged as he is rueful; Sharon, investigating a claim triggered by one of the heists, becomes an unwitting pivot between the two men. Supporting turns add texture: a leathery mentor figure, an incautious rival who threatens to upend Mike’s carefully managed world, and a girlfriend left in the dark about his work.
Layton stages an early heist with cool technical precision, and the film’s best sequences rely on that granular choreography — the timing, routes and human variables that make each caper tense. The ocean and freeway imagery recur as emotional shorthand: for some characters the beach is refuge, for others a distant aspiration, and for the story it’s a visual motif that grounds the film in Southern California noir.
Echoes of Michael Mann — and the price of homage
One of Crime 101’s clearest notes is how much it channels a specific strain of elegant, urban crime filmmaking. The influence is aesthetic and structural: nighttime LA, immaculate interiors, procedural detail and a moral ambivalence that places admiration and pursuit in close quarters. Those echoes are a strength when the film leans into mood and craft; they become a liability when it seeks scale.
Critiques center on the movie’s derivative tendencies and a few unresolved threads. Some characters who promise narrative heft receive only fragmentary payoffs, and moments meant to expand the film’s moral scope — including touches of social detail — can feel perfunctory. The title’s cleverness is hit-or-miss, and a logistic conceit about robberies staged along a major freeway induces a knowing eye-roll for viewers familiar with LA geography and traffic realities. Still, the picture rarely loses its grip on tension, and an extended chase sequence involving the film’s hotheaded antagonist provides one of its most vivid adrenalin bursts.
What to expect at the theater
Crime 101 is best approached as a high-style, character-driven heist picture rather than a reinvention of its influences. Audiences seeking taut, well-staged robberies and a restrained leading turn from Hemsworth will find much to enjoy. Viewers wanting a broader scope or a wholly original sensibility may leave wanting more. The film opened in mid-February, arriving in the U. S. on Feb. 13 (ET), and it slots neatly into the current appetite for sleek, morally shaded crime thrillers.
Overall, Layton’s film delivers a watchable, frequently elegant take on the genre: part meticulous caper, part melancholic character study. It borrows a few of its best moves from predecessors, but its pleasures — technical craft, a magnetic central performance and several genuinely tense set pieces — keep it entertaining on its own terms.
