Sleek, sexy, and surprisingly character-centric, Crime 101 isn’t so much a how-to guide on criminal activities, it’s more a how-to on successfully replicating Michael Mann style of urban crime thriller. Chris Hemsworth plays a meticulous gentleman thief whose last job went bad. The LAPD detective (Mark Ruffalo) is on the case and is convinced there is one master thief connecting several high-end robberies along the 101 Highway in Los Angeles (thus the title, not in reference to a college class). Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) is the romantic partner tempting our thief to retire to a “normal life.” Halle Berry plays an insurance broker to the rich who is eager to be made partner in her firm. And Barry Keoghan is, you guessed it, playing a psychopathic chaos agent. Draw all these characters into one big score, throw in one-or-two-scene players like Jennifer Jason-Leigh as Ruffalo’s divorcing wife, Nick Nolte as a grizzled criminal middleman, and Corey Hawkins as a police detective, and it’s quite a stacked cast for your standard crime thriller. That’s because, thanks to writer/director Bart Layton, the man behind one of the best movies of 2018, American Animals, which was also an unusual take on dispelling our movie fantasy notions on crime, and also co-starred Keoghan. Layton’s adaptation of the novel by Don Winslow keeps the people at the heart of the action. Trust me, the actual chases and schemes are indeed thrilling, but it’s the rich and generous characterization that makes the inner life of this movie feel so much more bristling. You could have taken any of these major characters and made them the focal point, they’re that interesting and complicated. Mixing them together into an ensemble while still finding time for each of their perspectives and idiosyncrasies is just a feast for fans of engrossing and empathetic thrillers. Whatever you’re expecting, Crime 101 is likely better than that. Layton, already proven to be a master at genre replication, deserves more film opportunities when he’s delivering quality movies that know how to deliver the goods.

Nate’s Grade: B+