Michael Mann by no means invented the grungy heist thriller, but it’s safe to say that the Chicago-born auteur had ushered in a late-century romanticism to the slick crime caper about lonely men with strict codes that just about everybody in adjacent realms has been—intentionally or not—trying to emulate since the days when De Niro and Pacino first sat across from one another to muse about their forlorn masculine yearning. Bart Layton’s “Crime 101” appears to be no different, itself coming hot off the heels of one of Mann’s more certifiably successful descendants in Christian Gudegast’s “Den of Thieves” duology, but as any competent criminal knows all too well, appearances are made to mislead.
…Not so much in this case, as Layton’s Mann riff is about as straightforward in its influences as you can get—right down to casting some of the iconic filmmaker’s own past collaborators in key roles—but what “Crime 101” loses in the novelty of a mastermind out to deceive the law hot on his tail, it gains in the absorbed execution of a steady formula that marks the trail of a career professional in full command of his surroundings. Generic as its title may be, “Crime 101” is about as direct in that promise of precise felonious planning as we’re likely to see before those cameras finally start rolling on the ever-promised “Heat 2.”
And it all starts with Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth, hemorrhaging what remains of the American accent he lent to Mann during their collaboration on “Blackhat”) and his own code-based criminal activities. Mike is precise, deceptively smart, devilishly handsome, and completely inept in leveraging those good looks to converse with women. Rarely has a critic seen himself so vividly reflected on the big screen. Instead, he leads a solitary life between the various small-time scores he nabs from targets moving their insured merchandise on the fringes of the 101 freeway along the California coast.
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This routine is more than enough for a man who refuses to let off a shot when he has a target at gunpoint, which is a fact apparent to LA detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo, as a more gruff and disillusioned evolution of the detective character he played for Mann in “Collateral”), who finds himself convinced of a hidden pattern in all of these meticulous, fatality-free heists. Mike is, of course, nothing if not careful in his chosen scores, and when surrounding parties grow to be a bit too greedy to scale things back, enough variables become involved to lead this diligent plan anywhere but the controlled conclusion Mike craves.
When Layton isn’t borrowing cast members from the same man from whom he’s borrowing stylistic cues, “Crime 101” surrounds them with an eclectic ensemble to round out the quasi-divergent narratives that make up its depiction of a disenfranchised LA pushed to desperation. Halle Berry as the insurance agent, increasingly aggrieved by her flailing position in a company that sees her age as a nail in the coffin for her salesmanship, brings a much-needed gravity to help centre a film that otherwise has Barry Keoghan running wild like a rabid coyote blasting Run the Jewels on a motorbike (that’s how you know he’s hardcore!).
Even as players like Nick Nolte, Corey Hawkins and Saeed Roustayi regular Payman Maadi float in and out of the narrative, “Crime 101” largely anchors itself to this primary quartet, though much of Layton’s energy is, like Mike’s own shifting plans, spread out with increasing thinness as the finding, planning, and circumvention of the primary score from all sides of the field are juggled with his attempts to bring a sense of tactile motivation to those increasing stakes.
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Mike’s own social imbalance is played off with acceptable earnestness by someone as godly in his physique as Hemsworth. His inability to look anyone in the eye for more than a few seconds sells the debilitating difficulty he has in collecting data from Berry’s Sharon, who reads people for a living, just as much as it hampers his ability to carve something of a romantic dynamic with an underused Monica Barbaro as a woman just as adept at identifying red flags as she is at completely ignoring them.
But for a film of such hefty length—two hours and 20 minutes seems to be the requisite for this sort of venture—Layton’s difficulties in balancing the overarching social dynamics with the modest but slippery enterprise binding them all together makes the lack of a more textured sense of doomed idealism all the more felt, despite how many expertly unobtrusive parallel edits he may find to cut between a distressed victim of a home invasion and a disgruntled cop lying sideface in a yoga class.
That said, the general modern malaise of a late-stage capitalist society does seem to be at the forefront of Layton’s depiction of LA today, as every score scoped, every insurance deal nearly closed, is less a step towards “enough is never enough” and more the result of “I’ve tasted poverty; never again.”
After a certain point, though, the difference between the two becomes just as hazy when that throbbing California heat is exacerbated by the insulation of a ski mask or the sweat trickling down the trigger-finger, and while “Crime 101” certainly diverts its varied focuses far too often to fully diagnose the issue, Bart Layton certainly takes his moments to gaze into the blinding nighttime traffic and hope that its blurred glistening might be enough when a diamond’s gleam is nothing more than a light guiding you to the next job.
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