Don’t let the title fool you: Bart Layton’s star-studded crime drama “Crime 101” is not about Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo and Barry Keoghan taking criminology classes together. That sounds like a cool idea, don’t get me wrong — especially if they solve murder mysteries afterwards. But no, the “101” in the title refers to Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, which somehow manages to be where a lot of crimes take place while hardly ever appearing on camera.
Los Angeles has a long history of hard-boiled crime stories, from the novels of Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley and James Ellroy, to classic crime films like “Double Indemnity,” “Chinatown” and “Heat.” Layton’s film, adapted from a 2020 novella by Don Winslow, practically shoves its way into that canon. A lot of this crime saga takes place on familiar city streets and inside famous hotels. If “Crime 101” had something to say about Los Angeles, that would have been better, but it’s still a slick sight-seeing tour with a game cast and a reasonably engaging plot.
Chris Hemsworth stars as Mike, a professional thief with an obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. His heists are so flawless that the only evidence they were perpetrated by the same guy is the complete lack of evidence. Most of the police don’t even want to acknowledge there’s a pattern. It’s a lot easier to frame other poor saps for Mike’s diamond heists than track down a career criminal who’s actually good at his job.
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But then there’s Detective Lubesnick, played by Mark Ruffalo as an off-brand Columbo, complete with saggy posture and slobby hair. Lubesnick will stop at nothing to bring Mike to justice. Never mind why Lubesnick wants to bring Mike to justice. There’s nothing personal about it. He isn’t even a particularly good detective. He’s got the lowest clearance rate in the whole department, so it’s not like he’s a workaholic who can’t help himself. But you can’t have a cops and robbers movie without the cops, and Mark Ruffalo makes the most of out of his role. (Yes, Mark, when they reboot “Columbo” the role is definitely yours.)
The crime part of “Crime 101” is a little unfocused, but in a nutshell, Mike wants to get out of the game, so his boss enlists a younger, hungrier, scarier goon to take his place. Orman, played by Barry Keoghan, is a freaky little weirdo who seems threatening, even though he’s barely competent. Orman’s inadequacy makes him unpredictable and volatile. He’s the Joker to Hemsworth’s Batman, if Batman also liked robbing people.
Meanwhile, in a subplot that makes “Crime 101” play like an old hyperlink movie à la “Babel” or “Crash,” Sharon (Halle Berry) keeps wandering in and out of everyone else’s story. She’s a successful insurance broker, but her career trajectory got hijacked by her sexist bosses. She’ll investigate the crime with the cops and she’ll get pulled into the criminal underworld eventually. Berry gets the film’s biggest emotional moments and she knows exactly how to play them, even though the movie doesn’t always know what to do with her as she waits for those scenes.
Bart Layton apparently loves crime. He made a big splash with the 2012 con artist documentary “The Imposter,” and another splash with the 2018 heist docudrama “American Animals.” He knows where to put a camera, and working with cinematographer Erik Wilson (“Better Man”) he develops a glossy, confident visual style. The framing in “Crime 101” is impeccable, and the sharp camera movements do a fine job of making even the oldest cinematic clichés in the book feel fresh. (Well, fresh-ish.)
“Crime 101” is almost a great crime movie, it just never shoots for the moon. Layton clearly loves Los Angeles, but his filmmaking reveals nothing about the city’s character. There’s very little that links these events to southern California, and with a few minor tweaks it could easily have been filmed anywhere else. And although “Crime 101” makes a few overtures about the haves and the have-nots, Layton only tries to hammer that home in the final act, so the theme of the movie — some might even call it “the point” — plays like an afterthought.
It may seem like Chris Hemsworth is the weak link in “Crime 101,” but that’s not fair. Hemsworth was instructed to play an enigma. The movie doesn’t want us to know much about Mike. He’s exceedingly aloof, even with his very normal girlfriend Maya (Monica Barbaro), but we do pick up some details that make sense of Hemsworth’s choices later. He’s obsessive-compulsive, we’ve mentioned that already. He’s also sexually meek, refuses to discuss his past and struggles to maintain eye contact.
When “Crime 101” finally hints at why Mike lives and behaves like this, astute moviegoers may finally appreciate that Hemsworth is playing this role well. The problem is that withholding the explanation, and keeping it vague even when it’s revealed, keeps the film’s central character at arm’s length. It’s hard to get in Mike’s corner when nobody invites us, not even the filmmakers. They need us to care about this guy for the story to work, and by the time we figure him out, it’s a little too little and a lot too late.
That “Crime 101” comes close to greatness and never quite gets there is not a crime. Even if it was, it’d be a misdemeanor. The flaws in “Crime 101” are only somewhat distracting, and they never ruin the experience, they just get in the way a little. The plot can be humdrum, and it often lacks drive, yet the skilled cast and sleek visual style keep our eyes locked on the screen anyway. So what if Bart Layton’s film doesn’t steal our hearts? It’s still getting away with something.
