This review contains spoilers.
The theatrical poster for “Crime 101” features the faces of the highest-paid actors in a talking-head style, usually for contractual billing reasons. This was popularized by Star Wars movies, later Marvel movies and usually characterizes large studio blockbusters. My gut reaction to posters like this is immediate weariness. Who needs another movie like that? Fortunately, I was sorely mistaken about “Crime 101.”
“Crime 101” is a heist movie that doesn’t focus on the heists; it’s a car chase movie that doesn’t have very many car chases. Where it lacks in action, it makes up for in thematic richness, even if the dialogue and performances don’t live up to that throughout the movie’s entirety.
Critics have cited many similarities between this movie and Michael Mann’s 1995 classic “Heat.” However, aside from both being heist movies set in Los Angeles, the two are not similar.
Their biggest difference is that “Crime 101” is decidedly against violence. One of the protagonists of “Crime 101,” Davis, played by Chris Hemsworth, is a thief who steals high-value items from rich people off of Route 101, hence the film’s name. Davis never uses violence in his heists. His foil, a younger, bleached-blond, reckless thief, Ormon, played by Barry Keoghan, is his opposite. Ormon doesn’t get as much screen time as his character deserves, shoots, slices, kicks and punches his way through haphazard robberies.
Both thieves are hired and pitted against each other by Money, an older man played by Nick Nolte, who just wants the jobs to get done fast.
Davis is good at his job because of his precision, and Ormon is mediocre at his job because he threatens anyone who gets in between him and his prize.
Davis’ and Ormon’s extralegal activities are secondary to a much bigger and more important question: why does someone steal in the first place? This film attacks this question with a class-conscious lens. Davis only steals because that’s all he’s ever known. He comes from a lower-class background in the foster system, where thievery and crime are what brought him from the slums to a life of bland, sanitized wealth. He has money but has no idea what to do with it. Davis would not be in the place he is without stealing.
Sharon, the second protagonist played by Halle Berry, writes insurance policies for LA’s elite and is not immediately involved in crime, although she feels like she might as well be. Sharon’s company does whatever it can to skirt around paying out its claims. She’s somewhat content with the idea, because her clients aren’t much better; they’re billionaires who gleefully exploit the lower classes without a second thought.
Sharon also grew up very poor. She worked very hard to get to her position, but has been constantly overlooked for a promotion at her firm. She eventually realizes that she won’t ever be promoted because the company is exploiting her in the same way that they exploit all the young women who come to work for them. Nearing middle age, she has been tossed aside by her company in favor of fresh meat.
Finally, the third protagonist is Lou, played by Mark Ruffalo, an aging LAPD detective who follows the classic “I’m too old for this” archetype. Like Sharon, Lou works for an organization that isn’t interested in helping anyone but itself. Lou is investigating the robberies Davis commits, based on the theory that they are all committed by the same person. Lou’s higher-ups tell him to follow precedent, scrap his theory and find the quickest, most immediately plausible suspect and move on, even if that isn’t the real solution.
LAPD in “Crime 101” is just as corrupt as the criminals we see them trying to stop. One of Lou’s supervisors even tells him that if he had played the game like everyone else, he would be in a position much more suitable for his age.
The movie conveys the same message to all three of its heroes: if you want to move up in the world, you have to exploit others. A little on the nose, the white, wealthy elites of this movie can even be seen buying Indigenous and Black artworks for their personal collections.
Its conclusion is no more optimistic. None of the protagonists escapes the tyranny of the upper class, and they find that the only way they can even survive is by helping each other where they’re able.