Crime 101 (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Bart Layton

Starring:  Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Monica Barbaro, Tate Donovan, Barry Keoghan, Nick Nolte

Crime 101 lends itself to comparisons to Heat and it wouldn't have it any other way.  We have a thief named Mike (Hemsworth) who does jobs with efficiency and without hurting anyone.  He is in command, knows how to perform the heist with maximum speed and effectiveness, and then disappears onto the 101 freeway.  Grizzled detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) detects a pattern and tries to convince his bosses that this thief only strikes near the 101 because of its easy access to and from the crime scenes.  

Mike works alone, except for when he retrieves his latest assignments by underworld boss Money (Nolte), and he also lives alone and we sense his need to connect to someone.  After his last attempted jewel heist goes awry, Mike wants out, and a young woman named Maya who meets Mike after rear-ending him in a traffic accident provides the catalyst to come out of his shell.  However, explaining what he does for a living is understandably not part of this change.  His apartment is sleek and stylish, but doesn't feel lived in.  There are no photos of his family.  Maybe he doesn't have one.

Lubesnick is the opposite of Mike.  He smokes, drives an old car, looks like he slept in his clothes, doesn't shave, and his wife is leaving him.  But he's smart and determined.  His superiors just want him to close cases and show little interest in his theory on the "101 robber".  They just want the cases solved.  Even the LAPD has metrics it needs to hit.   However, Mike knows he needs one more big score to retire forever, maybe even with Maya. 

I won't give away further details, but Crime 101 is Heat with a happier ending for its characters.  There is a psychotic criminal (Keoghan) who wants to take over Mike's territory because Money thinks Mike is losing his nerve, but Keoghan's character is unstable in more ways than one.  Crime 101 doesn't strike as deep a nerve as Heat, in which its characters realize they need each other in complex ways.  There were no easy payoffs and most of the people were killed or left behind.  Crime 101 does run a tad too long at 140 minutes, but we wind up caring and that's more than half the battle.