Crime 101 ★★★
- 2filmcritics
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Availability: Only streaming and only on Amazon Prime Video (in the US). See JustWatch here for full purchase and rental availability. It opened in theaters in February and went to streaming (US distributor Amazon MGM, international distributor Sony International) 47 days later after less-than-robust box office sales. It found an audience online, where it’s been the number 1 video internationally.
Getting to the Beach on The 101
Set in Los Angeles, director and screenwriter Bart Layton’s “Crime 101” has some of the look and feel of film noir. At least there’s plenty of noir. Most of it, including an opening and overly complex heist sequence, is shot in the dark and shadows, on shimmering wet streets, and in the parking structures of the city. The intense light for which LA is known appears only in the last scene, with Detective Lou Lubesnick (an avuncular Mark Ruffalo) jubilantly emerging from a subterranean parking ramp in a newly acquired forest green 1968 Chevy Camaro, and in frequent allusions to the “beach,” a metaphoric place to experience a different life.
The serial robber is the protagonist Mike, who despite his armed robbery spree has never hurt anyone.
There are 3 heists, 2 of them committed (like a dozen others) along the US Route 101 corridor (aka Hollywood Freeway, Ventura Freeway “to the sun”), as Columbo-like Lou figures out after turning, rather abruptly (and for the only time in the film), to a “Moneyball” way of predicting criminal activity. The serial robber is the protagonist Mike (Chris Hemsworth), a sensitive introvert and a man of moral contradictions, who despite his armed robbery spree has never hurt anyone. Filling out the main characters is Sharon (at 58, Halle Berry had finally gotten old enough to transcend her good looks), a luxury insurance salesperson who at 53 (in the film), and with 10 years of experience at the job, is deemed too old for partnership—and she justifiably resents it.
Chris Hemsworth is the "honest thief" Mike,
who spends a lot of time in LA parking garages in his fancy cars.
Maya, Mike’s love interest (a predictably ordinary Monica Barbaro), is less central to the plot; her role is to deconstruct Mike for us (in lieu of flashbacks), to point out that he appears not to have interests, a family he cares about, or even photos that might reveal something about this “man of secrets.” Sharon, although central to the action, does something similar as she shows off her ability to analyze clients by commenting on Mike’s grooming, his expensive watch, and his passion for vintage cars.
Sharon (Halle Berry) gives Mike (Hemsworth) that knowing woman's look,
showing him she has him figured out.
In the course of the story, Mike, Sharon, and Lou (but not Maya) will commit crimes, and yet Layton wants us to see them as fundamentally good people, undeserving of punishment, shaped by circumstances: Sharon as a result of shabby treatment by the male partners at her insurance firm (she’s been used as “bait,” and now deemed too old for that, her prospects are handed over to a younger woman); Mike by child abuse and insecurities stemming from never having enough money, from having been homeless; Lou, because he “knows” that Mike’s not a bad guy, and because he understands that sometimes you have to do wrong to do right. The film—like the novella on which it’s based (dedicated to Steve McQueen)—wants us to see Mike through Lou’s eyes, to grant the “honest thief” grace.
Another knowing woman's look comes from Maya (Monica Barbaro), who tries to uncover some of the mysteries of this "man of many secrets" (Hemsworth).
Grace is easier to grant when the bad guys are so bad. Money (a wasted Nick Nolte), Mike’s fence, cares little that the heist he has planned at a Santa Barbara jewelry store (just off “The 101” as Angelenos refer to it, of course) could be a death trap. Ormon (Barry Keoghan, a versatile actor typecast here), who carries out that heist and appears at the third (in a luxury suite at the Beverly Wilshire hotel), is a violent, psychotic, homophobic mess. The wealthy, arrogant, art connoisseur and client of Sharon’s, Steve Monroe (Tate Donovan), whose marriage to a younger woman (always a sign of decadence) precipitates the third heist, is defined by moral arbiter Lou, though without evidence, as a tax cheat and scammer. Lou operates in a corrupt police bureaucracy. Mike, Sharon, and Lou are preemptively rehabilitated—given grace, forgiven their wrongdoing—by relativity.
The character-driven core of the film is accompanied by considerable attention to yoga, here both a physical practice and a metaphor.
The character-driven core of the film is accompanied by considerable attention to yoga, here both a physical practice and a metaphor for how Mike, Sharon, and Lou might achieve an inner peace or a more satisfying way of being themselves. The meme is applied through Lou, who develops a relationship with Sharon, a yoga regular feeling her age; we first see her applying face cream to plump away the wrinkles. Through Sharon, Lou realizes that a more holistic sensibility, one incorporating both reason and intuition, would enhance his policing skills. Neither Mike nor his love interest, Maya, are into yoga, but Maya has a similar role as Mike’s amateur therapist. It seems men need women to show them how to get to the beach.
Loose ends and moments lacking credibility abound, of the sort one wouldn’t tolerate in, say, a Michael Connelly novel.
One wishes that Layton had been as diligent about the details of police/crime drama as he is about character development, especially in a production that runs well over 2 hours, the first half of which is too slow and stuffed with characters we won’t care about. Loose ends and moments lacking credibility abound, of the sort one wouldn’t tolerate in, say, a Michael Connelly novel, and apparently were not in the slim, tightly plotted novella by Don Winslow on which the screenplay is based.
Nolte’s character vanishes from the story. Lou is suspended from the force, yet he continues to play a central role (including a heist of evidence from the police property room), his suspension never again mentioned. It’s not clear why Ormon, on his motorcycle fleeing Mike, would stop dead in an intersection, and wait for his pursuer to catch up—except the need of the producers to fill the screen with many, too many, chases. The denouement in the Beverly Hills hotel requires too much audience buy-in: can Lou create a story that will erase Mike from the event? What will a traumatized Monroe and his fiancée tell investigators? Would an ethical detective ever imagine such a scenario?
Mark Ruffalo, in a role first designed for Pedro Pascal, channels his Peter Falk.
Hemsworth, known for his roles in the “Marvel” and “Mad Max” action franchises, is credible as the damaged but ethical ordinary man driven to extraordinary acts. He’s no Steve McQueen, and yet he functions well between hero and anti-hero. Ruffalo, in a role first designed for Pedro Pascal, channels his Peter Falk. And Berry is an intersection of brains and aging beauty.
“Crime 101” is best enjoyed for the performances of those 3, for its undercurrent of commentary on character and, more precisely, for insight into how one judges those who have engaged in conduct that is less than ethical. An entertaining and surprisingly interesting film, without being convincing or “good.”
He says: Within the genre, this is a flawed film, less seamless than one would expect. For me, it was refreshing that not everything is foreshadowed, not everything fully explained, not everything—especially the relationships—wrapped up at the end.
She says: Looks like I’m in with the video watchers. It was not a bad way to spend a couple hours in an evening at home, but it didn’t hold up to discussion and analysis later.
Date: 2026
Director: Bart Layton
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Nick Nolte, Tate Donovan
Countries: United States, United Kingdom
Language: English
Runtime: 140 minutes
Other Awards: None to date
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