Crime 101
Director: Bart Layton
Cert: 15A
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte
Running Time: 2 hrs 20 mins
A year or two before the promised arrival of Heat 2, we get a decent crime thriller that swims in adjacent waters to Michael Mann’s untouchable 1995 original.
Mark Ruffalo is Lou Lubesnick, a tough, rundown cop who has become obsessed with the man behind a series of exquisitely planned robberies along the 101 freeway in Los Angeles.
That thief is the reserved, disciplined Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth). He lives in a cool, soulless apartment. Hitherto reluctant about getting into relationships, he hooks up with a decent civilian (Monica Barbaro) and proposes fleeing the coop whenever his mysterious job allows.
Sound familiar? It is not just the plot that reminds us of Heat. Bart Layton, director of American Animals, punctuates the film with shots that communicate the huge unknowability of Los Angeles. Aerial footage of the freeways at night presses home the alienating effect of a city that exists primarily to allow mechanised movement. Blanck Mass’s soundtrack is at home to a familiar bubbling drone.
None of this is meant as negative criticism. Heat has evolved into a key LA text over the past 30 years, and Layton is allowed to dance in its penumbra. Crime 101, adapted from a story by the prolific Don Winslow, is a sleekly made film that gives its strong cast room to exercise different schools of glamour.
Ruffalo may be wearing a bit of padding, but he remains the same scuffed charmer. Hemsworth is almost good-looking enough to weather a Steve McQueen reference late in the film. Halle Berry savours her role as a misused insurance broker.
And then there is Barry Keoghan. Energetic as a motorbiking hoodlum who operates in Davis’s shadow, the Dubliner brings a little of his Love/Hate juice to the city of angels. It is the sort of supporting role he eats alive.
For all that, there is something a bit flat about Crime 101. This is a more sentimental, less cynical piece than the Michael Mann film. Whereas Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley could be utterly ruthless, Hemsworth’s Davis is a sweetheart who has never discharged a gun in anger. He’s Robin Hood. He’s Raffles, the gentleman thief.
We don’t demand hard realism from such a project, but a little more edge would have been nice. Solid, middlebrow entertainment, nonetheless.