There’s nothing better than a good L.A. crime picture. With its gritty sun-lit days and nights illuminated by the lights from its skyscrapers, Los Angeles is the perfect setting for films where bad people do bad business. Bart Layton’s Crime 101 is one of the best in some time.

Adapting the 2020 novella by Don Winslow, Layton understands how to use the city’s landscapes; making Los Angeles its own character. Erik Alexander Wilson’s camera almost slithers through the L.A. nights, allowing viewers to take in the scope of the City of Angels. During interiors, Wilson and Layton shoot against large windows, as the city breathes in the background. As the plot unravels and characters walk a crooked moral line, L.A. is always watching.

Slick films like John Boorman’s 1967 classic Point Blank and Walter Hill’s 1978 mood piece The Driver are masterful examples of filmmakers using the L.A. nights and the underbelly of the city to enhance the story. Gary Sherman’s Vice Squad (1982) and John Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up (1986) made effective use of the city’s sleazier side, while William Friedkin’s 1985 To Live and Die in L.A. used the titular location as a flamethrower that engulfed its cast of morally-challenged characters.

Bart Layton studied all of these films and it shows in the film’s design, but his biggest homages go to Michael Mann. The stylistic and storytelling influences of 1981’s Thief and (especially) 1995’s Heat are all over Crime 101. This isn’t a bad thing, but as good as the film is, there are a few moments that flirt with becoming derivative.

Chris Hemsworth is quite good as Mike Davis, a thief who robs couriers of their dirty jewelry and money. Mike is wire-tight in the way he conducts his business. Brandishing a gun, he never uses violence. This isn’t a guy who came from a hard prison life like the characters in Mann’s films. Mike came from poverty and found a way to make money without existing in the real world. Planning every heist down to the second,he is the ultimate professional.

In his personal life, there is nothing. No love interest and a beach house that came furnished. Mike spends a few scenes alone in the house, staring at the waves, a’la De Niro’s Neil McCauley from Heat. He is a lonely man but his goal to hit “the magic number” and end this life of crime allows for no personal attachments. If you feel the need to recite De Niro’s dialogue about allowing nothing in your life that you couldn’t walk away from in 30 seconds, get it out of your system.

Hemsworth plays Mike with a stoic sheen and as a man who is resigned to the fact that the world is screwed and we must take what we can to rise above it; a philosophy he shares with L.A.P.D. detective, Lou Lubesnick (an excellent Mark Ruffalo). Lubesnick has been chasing the perpetrator of a string of robberies down the 101 freeway for a few years. His captain thinks Lou is chasing ghosts and wasting department resources, while his partner (Corey Hawkins) is equally fed up.

Mike and Lou are on the same mental path. Jaded and scared of an uncertain future, the two men remain focused on their respective goals. Mike will make enough to retire. Lou will find the 101 robber and bring him to justice. As their captivating cat and mouse game begins, the two men travel a crooked road in the hope of finding personal redemption.

Crime 101 is populated with a good cast. Hemsworth hasn’t been given the chance to act in a long time. Mark Ruffalo is perfect as the ruffled cop, even if he can play this role in his sleep. Halle Berry redeems herself from the last couple decades of bad films as an insurance adjuster who becomes entangled with Mike and Lou. Monica Barbaro brings balance to this sea of corrupt souls as a woman who finds a connection to Mike and becomes our guide into his psyche.

Barry Keoghan gets a bit of the shaft in an underwritten role of another (and more dangerous) young thief out to end Mike’s reign.

Nick Nolte and Jennifer Jason Leigh are fine in their short time on screen, but Leigh’s role as Lou’s wife is given only one five minute scene. Nolte gets a couple more but neither actor is given a lot to do.

Blake Layton’s screenplay takes jabs at a capitalist society and its effect on citizens in lesser financial brackets. For Mike, Lou, and Halle Berry’s Sharon, the “higher-ups” have pushed them too far. For these characters, the legal line must be crossed to get out from under such a cruel system. While Layton’s sociopolitical commentaries don’t always land, the director has given some depth to the story, separating his work from being another standard cop versus bad guy thriller.

While there is a well-executed car chase and an intense robbery gone wrong, Crime 101 is not an action picture. Director Layton has designed a character-driven thriller for adults. The plot is labyrinthine, but the story reveals its many layers seamlessly and without contrivances. A good deal of this film is quite riveting.

With its good cast, involving screenplay, and focused director, Crime 101 becomes more than a pastiche of previous films. This is a patient and well-paced thriller that cuts its own entertaining path through the streets of L.A. crime cinema.

 

Crime 101

Written by Blake Layton, adapted from the novella by Don Winslow

Directed by Blake Layton

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Hallde Berry, Monica Barbaro, Barry Keoghan, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Jason Leigh

R, 139 Minutes, Amazon MGM Studios, Working Title Films