US EditionMovie Review: ‘Crime 101’ is a middle of the road L.A. heist movie, with ‘Heat’ around the corner
- Reviewers say Crime 101 lands as a `Heat`-influenced heist film, but it ends up stuck in the middle of the road, despite some basic appeal, says AP Film Writer.
- Layton adapted Don Winslow's novella to explore heist tropes, drawing on his long fondness for the genre and focusing on central characters wrestling with their need or desire for more.
- Chris Hemsworth's Mike Davis executes stealthy robberies along the 101 freeway while Mark Ruffalo's Detective Lou Lubesnick spots a pattern amid departmental indifference.
- Mark Ruffalo's performance deepens his detective, and Erik Wilson's cinematography gives the film a cool sheen; the Amazon MGM release is rated R, critics say.
- As a heist primer, the film gestures to classics like Heat with its opening image of floating skin particles and 101 freeway crimes, but critics say it won’t unseat The Asphalt Jungle or Rififi.
69 Articles
69 Articles
"Avengers" star Chris Hemsworth trades the superhero world for modern-day California and a career as a diamond thief with a conscience and a sense of class. Subversively for today's America, it's the super-rich who get the brunt.
For ‘Crime 101,’ the action is the juice, even if it knows ‘Heat’ too well
It’s nearly impossible to resist Michael Mann’s 1995 crime epic “Heat” — especially for filmmakers who can’t ignore the siren call to make their own Los Angeles-based showdown featuring a psychologically complex relationship between a perfectionist robber and an obsessive cop (e.g., “Den of Thieves,” “Wrath of Man”). British writer-director Bart Layton, who previously made the quirky art heist thriller “American Animals,” now offers up his versi…
Bart Layton is part of the tradition of neo-black police movies with this thriller of action all successful.
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- 46% of the sources lean Left
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