Crime 101 (2026)
An elusive thief, eyeing his final score, encounters a disillusioned insurance broker at her own crossroads. As their paths intertwine, a relentless detective trails them hoping to thwart the multi-million dollar heist they are planning.
directed by: Bart Layton
written by: Bart Layton, Don Winslow
starring: Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo…
Talk about a surprise… I can tell you straight up that Crime 101 most definitely isn’t the basic big studio film that I initially assumed it was. The characters have depth, the plot was enthralling and as a nice neat cherry on top, it was beautifully shot. If you love a in depth-character study of a crime movie that loves to rag it’s audience about a little, then this one may be for you.
Straight off the bat, this film yells stylish. The opening shot of an upside down LA highway at night was hypnotic. And as soon as it started to slowly rotate into an upright position, I was captured. This was followed by a soft abstract voice, which spoke over our introduction to the film’s main characters. There’s definitely a world where this same opening could have felt cheap and samey samey, but Bart Layton here managed to pull it off very well.
What would follow was a story centred around four main characters, being those portrayed by Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo. You could even throw Barry Keoghan’s character in there too, but I wouldn’t personally say he was the focus as much as the other three. Throughout the story, we hop, skipped and jumped between each three of theirs lives, with all three of them seemingly looking for the same thing. Joy. Satisfaction in life despite internal and external opposition. Although how they go about doing that differs drastically.
Chris Hemsworth is for sure the main focus in this film, and a giant hat’s off to him because he did an amazing job playing a character with deep-seeded wounds that you don’t often see portrayed by an actor of his nature. The confidence, the charisma, the slick qualities that we usually associate with most of his characters is very stripped back in Crime 101, making for a performance that I for one found very impressive.
And I’d be remised if I didn’t touch on the quality of the scene transitions in this film. they were consistently artistic to a tee. I mean, I’ve not read the book that this film was based off of, so I don’t know how far Bart Layton drifted from the original content, but the way he moved from a posh restaurant to a late-night diner, just to name one example, all tied together with smart dialogue was a major standout in this film.
The story in itself however, really did it for me. The decision from one of the characters near the end, , without giving away any spoilers, was very unexpected and therefore impressive from my view. And all the alliances formed, the double crossing, the switch ups and deceit constantly had you hooked. There are a lot of films with which this approach of consistent hopping between characters can become confusing, but with this film in particular, it managed to do it in a way that kept me entertained.
I’m not going to lie, besides all that I found good about this movie, there were also some elements that I didn’t like so much. One being the first interaction between Chris Hemsworth and Barry Keoghan’s character. The chase was cool, but when they came face-to-face, I don’t know, it felt a little… off. They felt a little stiff for my liking. And the resolution for Halle Berry’s character, hmmm. I would have also have liked to have seen her getting something a bit more fulfilling than simply just a whole lot of money. Like, was that what she was after the whole time? Is that why she couldn’t sleep at night? Because she feared she was going to go broke? I didn’t really get it. Or was she just lonely and that’s why she couldn’t sleep? Either way, what’s her getting rich supposed to do to remedy that? I would have personally have like to see her wasteman of a boss to get little more comeuppance to. But that’s just me.
So, would I watch this film again? Yeah, I would. Maybe I missed something the first time round because I’m sure that wealth was one of the big themes in some way, even if I couldn’t connect all of the dots. So who knows. This definitely ain’t no Heat (1995), but for what it is, I definitely enjoyed watching it.