- Title: Crime 101
- IMDb: link
Writer/director Bart Layton‘s adaptation of Don Winslow‘s novella offers a mix between a heist film and a drama featuring the interconnected lives of strangers who converge. Our characters include our noble and uncatchable thief (Chris Hemsworth), the girl (Monica Barbaro) he begins dating after she literally crashes into him, a good cop (Mark Ruffalo) on the outs with his own department for following evidence rather than towing the company line, a middle-aged insurance agent (Halle Berry) passed over for another raise, and a second, more reckless, thief (Barry Keoghan) looking to steal a big score from Hemsworth’s character.
The screenplay juggles these various elements with intermediate success. Crime 101 is a film where certain segments pop and others feel like they were still in need of multiple rewrites. Getting our cop and insurance agent in the same orbit, necessary for the film’s third act, is pretty awkward. The film fumbles the Hemsworth and Barbaro pairing (even if their meet-cute is sickenly sweet and so obviously contrived you are waiting for the other shoe to drop). And the subplot of Nick Nolte as some kind of father figure and facilitator to both thieves is simply dropped and never resolved.
Despite its stellar cast, Crime 101 is less than the sum of its parts. Enough of the film, particularly the opening and closing heists and the thieves’ race across the city and the wide shots of Los Angeles (much more than the shaky cam), work well enough to make the film worth a watch for a certain audience. However, it’s not a movie I’d likely return to for a second viewing.
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