Review: "Crime 101"

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If Hollywood was a big Dunkin Donut, it would be heavily sprinkled with jewel heist/ crime caper movies.  There have been many over the years.  Some were quite entertaining.

Sadly, that is not the case with the latest Chris Hemsworth movie “Crime 101.”

The movie trailers looked action packed with gems, guns and car chases, but we all know that’s no guarantee that the movie will be worth seeing.  You can pull two exciting minutes of promotional footage from even the worst of movies.  Movie promotion is an age-old art that sometimes relies on smoke and mirrors.

In addition to slick trailers, the movie also boasted an A-List cast including Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry and Jennifer Jason Leigh. They are all characters in search of a cohesive story.

Director Bart Layton adapted “Crime 101” from a short story.  It’s proof that sometimes less really is more.

 The movie’s 2 hour 20-minute run time is a meandering mess of a script trying to expand on a story of a professional thief named Davis (Chris Hemsworth), a high-end insurance salesperson to the rich and famous, named Sharon (Halle Barry) and an aging Columbo-style LA detective named Lou (Mark Ruffalo).

They all cross paths in this overly complicated, underperforming crime caper.  A few recognizable supporting roles are tossed in for good measure, including an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lou’s about-to-be-ex-wife, and Nick Nolte as Money, the gnarly old crime kingpin Davis is working for.  Nolte seems to be channeling RFK, Jr for Money’s voice and line delivery.

Davis Chris Hemsworth and Sharon Halle Berry in CRIME 101 Photo Credit Merrick Morton

Hemsworth’s Davis is that loner of a criminal we’ve seen so many times before.  He’s a crook, but he’s a likeable crook with winning charm and rugged good looks.  We know he’s breaking the law, but we root for him anyway and hope he doesn’t get caught.  As always, Hemsworth brings his fan-pleasing acting chops to the role.

One can’t help but notice that three of the leading actors are superheroes from major franchises.  Hemsworth is Thor, Ruffalo is Hulk (from the Avengers), and Berry is Storm (from the X-Men movies).  It answers the question of what superhero actors do when they are not making superhero movies.  They pick up some spare change working on lower-budget projects that won’t take too much time out of their busy schedules.

Director Bart Layton’s IMBD blurb describes him as “a multi-award-winning writer, director and executive producer known for creating ground-breaking work and pushing the boundaries of conventional story-telling techniques.”

None of that is evident in “Crime 101.” It’s a story that never gains traction or creates a strong dramatic arc.  It’s hard to craft an engaging movie from a weak script.  “Crime 101” plays like a freshman Screenwriting 101 final project. Many film noir elements are there, but they never coalesce into a gritty, satisfying story or show-stopping conclusion.

A conversation between Davis and Lou references the movies of Steve McQueen, specifically, the movies “Bullitt” (1968) and “The Thomas Crown Affair” (also 1968).  You wonder if younger audiences would know who McQueen was, and whether there was a “Thomas Crown Affa”ir movie that didn’t star Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo.

The two men fondly reminisce about the two famous muscle cars featured in “Bullitt,” but the hunter green car proudly gifted to one of the characters at the end of the movie is neither a Ford Mustang nor Dodge Charger.

The mediocrity of “Crime 101” prevents it from earning a passing grade.  It’s a movie in need of a much more polished and streamlined script.  As it stands, it is a movie that just goes through the motions, checking off all the boxes of jewel robbery, car chases and cat-and-mouse detective work.  The proverbial dots are all there, for the most part.  They just fail to connect.