acid reflects

What’s the difference between a well-dressed thief and a billionaire? The thief knows exactly whose money he’s taking.

That’s not the plot of our movie this week but a crude joke about thieves and billionaires that I asked AI to help me make because in this story, established criminals and criminals in the establishment collide in Bart Layton’s smooth and satisfying L.A. heist thriller Crime 101.

Chris Hemsworth ditches his Oz accent for North American to play the well-dressed jewel thief 101 Robber who is responsible for a string of high-profile robberies in southern California along Highway 101. Davis (Hemsworth) is a methodical professional, scrubbing himself clean at the beginning of each robbery operation, operating on personally-set rules that leave zero trace of evidence that the police can’t work on. But even the most meticulous planner will hit a situation that either chaos or fate could have conjured.

A random encounter (in GenZ parlance an “organic encounter”) with the low-key Maya (Monica Barbaro) intrigues Davis for a life of normalcy and intimacy removed from his crminal grind. He refuses a job from his handler aptly named Money (a very raspy aged Nick Nolte, whose appearance onscreen felt like the sighting of a rare deer in the wild), who wasn’t pleased with Davis’ decision. Naturally, Money would have plans of his own.

Halle Berry is Sharon, an experienced insurance broker who is beginning to doubt whether pandering to the whims of the ultra rich is worth all the moral degredation surrounding them. Her firm insured the jeweller that Davis robbed at the beginning of the film, so they tell Sharon take the victim to the police for polygraph, basically to exonerate the firm for having to pay off the victim’s claims. Little did Sharon know that Davis has been planning to recruit her for a heist involving one of her billionaire clients.

Mark Ruffalo is Leo, the veteran police detective who has been investigating the 101 Robber for some time. The scruffy, unkempt detective is the complete opposite of Davis. His superiors just want him to deliver what they need, his partner Tillman (Corey Hawkins) just want him to toe the line. To not rock the boat that keeps everone in the system secure. Even his personal life is not in shape, a divorce from wife Angie looming (remember Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Single White Female? her.) In one scene she admits to cheating on Lou.

In this sun-kissed town, everybody seems to be on the road blankly staring at the billboard that asks, “Is it time to live your best life?” to the tune of Summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams.

When Sharon meets with Lou about the jewel robbery insurance, she drops a a nugget of wisdom that gives Leo the clue to finding the elusive 101 Robber.

And then there’s the wildcard, Ormon (Barry Keoghan) – the evil opposite of Davis. Brash, impulsive and prone to temper and violence, Ormon is Money’s alternate to the jobs that Davis has refused. All we know about Ormon is that his father was really good at this same job before. Keoghan gives Ormon such intensity that his mere appearance onscreen is enough signal for tension.

A thief, an accomplice, a detective, the wild card, and one multi-million dollar heist all come together for that chance to live their best lives other than the one they are living right now.

It’s not a painstaking set-up by Layton, adapted from the novella of the same title by Don Winslow published fairly recently in 2021. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t compare. I do not know if the subtlety in politics was there to begin with. But Layton’s screen adaptation is very cinematic. Characters are frequently lensed to be isolated, solitary – in a city full of people struggling to survive the day, it’s to each their own. Scenes build up, and then flow seamlessly into the next with clever match edits or through overlapping dialogue. Scenes weave in and out smoothly. It’s a deliberate pace, there’s no palpable intent to create excitement. But the story does build up nicely, especially in the final moments while the heist is being conducted.

It’s most striking feature is is cold, slick look, designed for a reason, from the eye of an outsider (Layton is British.) Even though the film exposes the grit and cracks of the L.A. social landscape, the film’s look is not gritty but slick, as if to say that no matter the sophistication and gloss and the designer blingbling, dirty is dirty from the inside out. Layton lays this out in the open, though with finesse rather than pulling out an explicit exposition: the billionaire has Spanish-speaking help, Sharon and other women are treated as subjects of male whimsy, those at the bottom of the food chain have no right to go against the flow. Just enough inserts here and there to subtly jab at The Establishment that has everyone under it in a chokehold, politics that the film has veiled under a veneer of cool, blue satin cinematography.

Suffice it to say that the audience is treated to pitch-perfect performances by the entire cast (I’ve already mentioned Keoghan’s visceral demeanor) but notably by a fiery Berry towards the end that gives her Sharon more substance as a character; Ruffalo who is just scruffy enough to tell us how down to earth his Leo is, but far from Jackson Lamb (of Slow Horses) -level of disgusting detective. Nolte, too, even with the short screen exposure. Only veterans of some magnitude can pull off screen presence like that.

The story isn’t particularly unique, nor its characters. It’s not a procedural like Ocean’s 11. It is unmistakeably reminiscent of the gritty ’90s LA crime thriller Heat from Michael Mann. But somehow it’s a pleasant diversion from the regular Hollywood fare of today that thrive on constant escalation and hyper stimulated action edited to the tune of pop music. For once, here’s a movie for grown ups that doesn’t pander to the four-quadrant audience. It just is a crime suspense movie.

So grab your can of cold beer (or glass of Merlot, or scotch) sit back, relax and enjoy the smooth ride.

Crime 101 is now out in Philippine cinemas from Columbia Pictures.

Images and link from Columbia Pictures.