Review - Crime 101
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan. Written and directed by Bart Layton. Rated R. 139 minutes. In theaters.
When people talk about the future of movies being AI, I don’t think it’s going to be like those hideous slop videos that sad tech dudes keep posting on social media with comments saying “Looks like Hollywood’s days are over!” because their billion-dollar invention just used more water than Lake Michigan to make Darth Vader high-five a cheerleader with big tits. (Admittedly, this isn’t a real video I saw. But it could be.) However, I do believe we’re going to see a lot of AI on the screenwriting level. We probably already do. After all, LLMs are plagiarism machines designed to tell users what they want to hear – the other day I saw someone call ChatGPT “spellcheck that agrees with you” and I can’t top that – and since repackaging stuff people already enjoyed into pale imitations is the basic job function of a modern studio executive, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that robots will be writing movies soon, if they aren’t already.
I have no way of knowing if the screenplay for “Crime 101” was generated by AI, but if you told me it was I wouldn’t be surprised. Purportedly based on a 2020 novella by Don Winslow, the movie is a collection of warmed over cops-and-robbers cliches that were already pretty hoary when Michael Mann threaded them together three decades ago in his magnificent magnum opus, “Heat.” That 1995 heist thriller serves as a lodestar for writer-director Bart Layton, who borrows all sorts of Mann-erisms and stylistic affectations like stoic men brooding in front of floor-to-ceiling windows and a dreamy synth score pulsing underneath sparkling shots of Los Angeles at night. What he doesn’t grasp is the poetry that makes Mann’s haunted men into myths -- the inflated grandeur that elevates routine policer material into arias of doomy romanticism. Plodding and workmanlike, “Crime 101” is as prosaic a picture as I’ve seen in ages.
Chris Hemsworth stars as a master jewel thief who has been pulling off flawlessly executed heists up and down the 101 freeway. A vaguely autistic control freak who can’t make eye contact with other people – how sad is it when you’re ripping off “The Accountant?” – Hemsworth’s character is a laughably Pollyanna-ish creation, stealing millions of dollars in merchandise while conscientiously making sure nobody gets hurt. The movie keeps reminding us that he’s also an orphan who grew up poor, a sign that someone at the studio was worried we might not otherwise be sympathetic enough to a handsome hunk who steals diamonds and drives an awesome car.
Mark Ruffalo is the burnout cop trying to track him down, referring to this mysterious bandit as “The Lone Wolf” because the movie is too creatively exhausted to come up with a cool nickname. Nobody else in the department believes all these heists could be the work of one man, but our hero is going with his gut. Speaking of said stomach, Ruffalo’s character is written as overweight, with other cops constantly cracking fat jokes and calling him “Detective Buddha.” But either the actor didn’t want to gain weight or the studio didn’t want to have to advertise a fat co-star, so he just looks like Mark Ruffalo.
The one authentic note is struck by Halle Berry as a workhorse executive at a fancy-schmancy insurance company who should have made partner years ago, but is being held back by the asshole corporate boys’ club. Her scenes are refreshingly frank about the burden and upkeep of being a beautiful woman of a certain age in a business where men are more interested in younger models, and if “Crime 101” had spent more time on Berry’s burgeoning friendship with Ruffalo we might have really had something here. It’s touching to watch these two unhappy, middle-aged people realize how much time they’ve wasted and try to muster up the gumption for a new start. (Basically, I’m saying the movie needed to spend more time ripping off “Jackie Brown” and less time Xeroxing “Heat.”)
Alas, the overqualified supporting cast runs through thin reprises of roles from the Mann film. A visibly ailing Nick Nolte gets the Jon Voight part as Hemsworth’s underworld connection, while poor Monica Barbaro is stuck playing Amy Brenneman as an innocent madly in love with this thief even though he won’t tell her anything about himself. (Granted, her behavior almost makes sense just because he looks like Chris Hemsworth.) The great Jennifer Jason Leigh has a role so insultingly small and undeveloped I debated even mentioning it here. Most absurdly, Barry Keoghan co-stars as the Waingro character, crashing into scenes with peroxided hair and a pink motorcycle jacket, being violent for no reason other than that nothing has happened in the film for a little while. He and Hemsworth get into a ridiculously protracted mid-movie car chase that has no effect on the story whatsoever and feels like it was inserted after the fact because a studio executive noticed that “Crime 101” is pretty short on crimes.
Bad “Heat” rip-offs are practically a genre of their own these days. I have friends who swear by the “Den of Thieves” movies but I’ve never been able to make it more than 40 minutes into the first one. (They all call it “Dumb Heat,” but I thought we already had “The Town” for that.) What makes me suspect that “Crime 101” might be AI, instead of just another lame imitation, are the bizarre leaps in logic that jut out like a sixth finger on the screenplay’s hand. After taking great pains to establish Hemsworth’s character is incapable of socializing and can’t finish a sentence with girlfriend Barbaro, he’s somehow able to sidle up to Halle Berry and charm her into having drinks with him at an art opening. Other examples veer into spoiler territory, but my DMs are open if anyone wants to try and explain what Ruffalo did with the other courier, or how anyone believed the cover story about an assailant with “a self-inflicted gunshot wound” in the back.
I don’t usually like to play Plot Cop because procedural story points tend to be the least interesting things in a picture. Great movies blow past gaping plot holes and insane coincidences all the time, and if “Crime 101” hadn’t been paced like molasses I’m sure half this shit would never have crossed my mind. But there’s not much else to do here besides ponder the contrivances when director Layton is lingering on his umpteenth transition shot of the nocturnal L.A. skyline and making us listen to fake Moby. These go on for so long that he sometimes turns the camera sideways or upside down for no reason. Around the second or third time he did it, I wanted to throw my arms up and yell, “Wheeee!”
“Crime 101” is now in theaters.