Movie Review: Crime 101

Sitting in a theater and watching heist thriller Crime 101 felt like taking a time machine back to the 80's or 90's. American Animals writer/director Bart Layton's second narrative feature is an ensemble-driven movie that is just as interested in exploring the characters that are involved with the different angles of the heist as the robberies themselves

The plot's primary focus is on how the lives of meticulous jewel thief Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), veteran detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) and insurance broker Sharon Combs (Halle Berry) begin to intersect following the robbery of $3 million worth of diamonds from an LA jeweler's (Payman Maadi) delivery. Fate has tethered these folks together as they've each reached a critical impasse in their lives. Mike is looking to get out of the thieving business after experiencing a close call on the aforementioned job that almost got him killed, Lou's obsession with catching Mike-who is pretty much impossible to catch as he's never left DNA or carried out any violence at the crime scene- has caused his wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to leave him and made him the laughing stock of his department and Sharon is growingly increasingly discontent with her job as her boss (Paul Adelstein) continues to delay giving her the promotion to partner he's long promised her. A potential solution to all of their problems presents itself when a wealthy client of Sharon's company (Tate Donovan) reveals a plan to give out diamonds as party favors at his wedding. Sweetening the pot is the fact that he's arranged to pay the courier $11 million in cash for the diamonds in order to avoid taxes. Mike reluctantly agrees to do the job, and Sharon requests a $3 million cut for providing him with the info. An already complicated job that requires getting in and out of a crowded luxury hotel in Beverly Hills becomes even more difficult when Mike discovers that his former fence (Nick Nolte) has recruited his hot-headed new protege (Barry Keoghan) to intercept the stones and cash as revenge for Mike severing ties with him after refusing to commit to a brazen jewelry store heist in Santa Barbara. Will Mike and Sharon be able to live long enough to walk away into the sunset? Can Lou finally catch the ghost that has alluded him? Does Keoghan play a character that actually proves to be pretty chill for once? Don't fret everybody, all of the answers to these questions and more are answered before the credits begin to roll! 

There was something nice about a heist movie trusting its audience to have some patience before it delves into the flashier parts of its story. Layton's solid script provides a complete picture as to why these people are doing what they're doing and Hemsworth, Ruffalo and especially Berry give strong, emotionally honest performances that provide the film with a surprising amount of grounded humanity. When the action bits are deployed (roughly about once every half hour during its well-paced 140-minute runtime), Layton matches the command over the material he showed off with his pen by staging some tense, slickly shot vehicle chases/robberies that gradually up the narrative stakes. Eventually, Crime 101 reverts back to the classic heist movie trope of deploying some silly, cute twists to explain away how the big final score was able to be pulled off against all odds, but that's really the only big misstep Layton makes here-which is pretty impressive for a filmmaker working on his first big budget studio feature.

Is Crime 101 going to end up finishing near the top of my 2026 year-end list? Probably not. However, it's a very compelling throwback heist thriller filled with strong performances, visuals and action that never feels derivative of the other movies that have covered similar territory in the city of Los Angeles before it. During this pretty slow part of the calendar, it's well worth making the trek out to theaters to see if you're into the genre or just want to see the type of movie that doesn't end up on the big screen all that much these days.    

Grade: B+