“I need to be in your line of work.”
Watching Crime 101 made me miss the straight-to-DVD/blu-ray times severely, specifically that window of space between the mid-late 00s and the early 10s when that area of film seemed to offer up titles in abundance. The combination of established stars and genuine talent come together for small films that were perhaps never meant to exist anywhere except under the radar, had its misses, but on the whole delivered more than it didn’t. There was enjoyment at seeing Kim Basinger use a toolbox to take on a collection of criminals in the Guillermo del Toro-produced While She Was Out, watch Michelle Pfeiffer fall in love with Ashton Kutcher in the Rick Moody adaptation Personal Effects, and witness Michael Caine and Demi Moore pull off a diamond heist in Flawless. There’s fun to be had with Crime 101 as well, but because the movie is a straight-to-DVD effort disguised as a big-screen excursion, we never have quite as much fun as we otherwise could have had 15 years ago.
Written and directed by Bart Layton from a Don Winslow short story, the paths of shadowy thief Davis (Chris Hemsworth), righteous detective Lou (Mark Ruffalo), and jaded insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) all cross when a multi-million dollar heist is planned pulls all three of them together. As they each find themselves getting more involved in the heist for various reasons, they soon also find themselves drawing the attention of a crime boss (Nick Nolte) and an assassin (Barry Keoghan), who is ready to carry out orders at a moment’s notice.
It’s obvious that the makers of Crime 101 were going for some late 90s/early 00s throwback, the kind of big twisty action/suspenser that there used to be more of. I cannot help but applaud them in this effort since it’s the kind of big-screen experience I was practically raised on and have longed for more and more each year. To Layton’s credit, he has partially succeeded in this through the casting of movie stars, all of whom boast their own unique level of wattage, and through as minimal an influence of modern technology as possible. However, none of this makes up for the fact that the glue that should hold all of Crime 101’s narrative sides together has been substituted with scotch tape. Every scene feels like an introduction or a set-up, establishing characters we’ve already spent upwards of an hour or more with and still giving us very little. The threads themselves aren’t particularly interesting (basically everyone wants money or justice, and they’re willing to go to great lengths they have to in order to get what they want.) As far as stakes go, sure, they’re high enough to warrant everyone’s action within the movie. But they ultimately come across as rather hollow in the grand scheme of things thanks to a script that’s overplotted, while at the same time stupefyingly sparse. I’m sure Layton knows that there is a way to make a throwback. This, however, isn’t it.
To its credit, Crime 101 does have an intriguing collection of figures to follow. Each of the characters are stuck in such a specific set of circumstances, all fighting the impasses they’ve encountered in their lives, that there’s no way they wouldn’t read as interesting on the page. The three leads are given admittedly telling scenes that represent the crux of who they are. Davis lets himself be vulnerable on an awkward first date, Lou sneers in the face of a corrupt act by one of his fellow officers, and Sharon explodes when her age is thrown in her face at work. But these instances are the exceptions in a film that never really gives us the chance to get to really know these sketchily drawn people. The movie knows this, I suspect, which is why it’s content scene after scene to have them continuously walking to a generic DJ beat as they’re on their way to contribute another piece of this sloppily-scripted puzzle. It’s an insult to the actors and the audience that the movie doesn’t have them stop and let us explore them as actual people for longer than just a random scene here and there. Anyone familiar with the heist film, even at a base level, knows there’s a way to accomplish this without making the mechanics of the plot suffer. Had the filmmakers found a way, Crime 101 might have had a chance at becoming a future classic in the genre.
As mentioned before, there’s no shortage of movie star action happening where the performances are concerned. These actors all came to play, and each of them believes in the movie enough, even when the script does not. Hemsworth does well as a disillusioned thief hoping to break free of his ghost-like existence. Ruffalo, meanwhile, gives one of his most grounded performances in some time as the detective forced to reevaluate his ideals. Finally, Berry does well as a woman being aged out of her professional world, causing her to take a dangerous chance. All of these traits come through via the solid and noticeable work each actor has done with their character, rather than anything the script gives them. It’s the reason they’re not just stars, but genuinely good actors who make Crime 101 far more watchable than it has any right to be. Also, Keoghan and Nolte also show up to play and deliver on their screen time.
If Crime 101 has one attribute besides its acting, it’s the fact that it’s so purely an L.A. movie, one that takes full advantage of the sprawling city/underused filming location. I have friends who live in the city and want more work in the field that they’re getting. However, production work has been minimal for some time in that city; it says a lot that a title as unsatisfying as this is standing out simply because of its filming location. Pfeiffer actually made a comment on this last year when she mentioned that in the last 20 years, only three projects she was a part of actually shot in Los Angeles. I’m glad that things are slowly changing, and production work seems to be coming back. As flawed as this movie is, I was genuinely pleased that all of the events happily used the great city of angels as its playground. There’s something really visceral and exhilarating about seeing a movie take place in this sun-drenched landscape that’s always been a storytelling breeding ground for playfulness, curiosity, and excitement; even in a movie as dire as Crime 101.
