Following the recent surge in quality blockbusters last year, its no question that the intrigue for what the mainstream movie sphere has to offer is high. The intrigue for the 2026 slate of blockbusters starts with Crime 101, a crime thriller directed and written by filmmaker Bart Layton and featuring a star studded cast of actors like Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo and Barry Keoghan The mystery behind the crime madness stems from a highly pursued robber known for stealing from jewelers, until the cops try to chase him down, ultimately raising the risks and stakes of these elusive heists. It’s a classic cops and robbers, cat and mouse game, with the narrative flashing between both sides of the criminals and the detectives on the case. Despite its inspiration from many other classic crime films, it for the least carves its own aesthetically pleasing lane.
The overall look of the film goes for sleek and flashy at times, In its bright night life cinematography and color grading from Erik Wilson and very well shot thrill sequences of high speed chases and frenetic heists. The score is another way to get the blood of thrill pumping, with it having a tense tone to fuel the constant atmosphere that demands your attention and engagement into this chasedown. Performances are also solid all around. everyone does their job and for the most part brings out a distinct personality. The only problem is, they aren’t compelling enough to grab your full attention when it wants to be emotional or explore deeper than the surface of thrilling crimes or shocks. Chris Hemsworth as the main criminal thief (Mike Davis) is the main example of that. He plays an ambitious yet stoic thief. Almost all he knows in his life is crime and always gives a blank stare of menace to his seemingly formidable opponents, but the moments where he sheds that macho persona with the script shifting to his personal life outside of thievery, he immediately becomes dull.
Mike is awkward, emotionally distant, with no sense of interests or somewhat outgoing personality to make up for it. Perhaps it serves as a show of how a money hungry mindset and desperation for financial freedom in a terrible economy makes people forget to save time for personal enjoyment outside of a day’s work, but something about the character still seems truly off and exaggerated in his closed off barricade of a personality. It feels almost robotic and monotonous to labor through at times, with never providing deeper commentary in that show of his dull expression. The most appealing character of all was probably Barry Keoghan’s character, Ormon. He plays a wreckless, angry and abrasive character that has way more of the goods to do dirty crime than Mike. It’s a typical madman persona you see in many crime films, but one your eyes are still glued to as soon as he comes on. The problem with his character, again lies at the hands of Bart Layton’s screenplay. You only see flashes of his character riding around town in a motorcycle rather than getting to see him as a fully contrived character. Despite being an important antagonist to the story, the plot still for some reason skips multiple beats on him to focus on a laboring pacing issue presented throughout the film. The movie runs very slow, as it chooses to linger on already hashed out details instead of moving forward into unpredictable territory of twist or turns in this diamond heist mystery.
It spends far too much time building unneeded anticipation to build room for an ultimate coherent and stretched out climax to come. While slow burns can be effective, the film got too caught up in the nature of it for its own good, ultimately moving sluggishly from one plot point to another without truly engaging further in depth with the details that all tied together into one big reveal. The bottom line of Crime 101 is that it succeeds at many things, but sadly fails at even more. It has the dapper style and appeal of a thrilling crime movie, but can’t offer much more beyond that. If you’re looking for a mildly entertaining cinema trip, this might be the one for you, but I wouldn’t be quick to get expectations a whole lot higher
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
