I’ve been down this particular avenue before, but when it comes to constructing a complex, crime epic, all attempts inevitably drop to their knees and pay homage to the undisputed alpha of the genre – Michael Mann’s Heat. It’s a point I’ve made so many times now, even I’m getting sick of repeating it, but every time someone tries to crack the code by merging sprawling casts that are perched on either side of the law (Den Of Thieves, Triple 9), they only succeed in highlighting just how damn flawless Mann’s 1995’s masterpiece truly is. Fuck, not even Mann himself has been able to recapture its brilliance.
However, Bart Layton’s Crime 101 genuinely is the closest to achieve what Mann managed and it somehow it does so without relying on a humongous, third act shootout. How has Layton managed this? By focusing not entirely on the bullets and subterfuge, but instead zeroing in on the most important resource any film should have – the characters.
Within the sprawl of Los Angeles, we focus on a bunch of seemingly random souls who soon will become irrevocably linked thanks to the criminal actions of reclusive and careful jewel thief, Mike Davis. Meticulously planning his heists in order to guarantee zero casualties and ensure the only ones to feel the financial burden ultimately are amoral fatcats, he nevertheless gets a rude awakening when his latest job almost ends in disaster, with only blind luck keeping him out of the morgue. With his nerve going, Mike also finds that his rather lonely (if pampered) existence is enriched with a chance meeting with Maya, who further makes him feel that his time as a robber is coming swiftly to an end.
This doesn’t sit particularly well with his fence, Money, who enlists twitchy, bike riding thug, Ormon to track Mike and discover what his next job may be in order to hijack it and steal it for themselves. But as tension mounts between the two, a third player has entered the game in the form of rumpled LAPD Detective Lou Lubesnick, who has managed to whittle down clues to discover that Mike has a pattern, even if his theory of a lone diamond thief is ridiculed by his peers. But while Lou follows his hunch to the detriment of his career and marriage, there’s one final piece to this grand, overlapping puzzle; high-end insurance broker Sharon Combs.
Unhappy with the way she’s being treated at her firm, she soon finds herself first being groomed by Mike to get information in his latest job, questioned by Lou who is gradually closing in and menaced by Ormon who is hoping to outclass Mike, all the players find themselves steadily contracting toward one another until they all finally meet at the worst possible moment in classic, crime epic style.
It’s amusing that every other Heat impersonator has fallen short primarily because they’ve believed that the secret elixir to success is to focus on the more testosterone swollen areas of Mann’s classic such as the tough-guy swaggering and that still awe-inspiring shootout, however, Layton’s Crime 101 takes a different route that proves that blazing guns aren’t the be all and end all of such things. In fact, Crime 101 goes out of its way to avoid hinging it’s complex plot on a big action climax, bringing its story much closer to the true meat on Heat’s bones. Instead, Layton goes noticably in another direction, lowering the violence content by making its central thief incredibly adverse to harming people which instantly makes him more relatable and makes his issues far more stressful when it seems that violence seems to be the only option left to him. However, while it doesn’t seem quite fair that I’m spending so much time on Heat while reviewing another movie, there’s one more, neat, Mann-adjacent fact that makes Crime 101 so fascinating.
Not only does the movie adopt and alter some of Heat’s famous fundamentals, it’s also seemingly co-opted a few stock, Mann characters that the cast has already played. You could argue that Mark Ruffalo’s grizzled, paunchy detective is the same cop he portrayed in Collateral just on a different timeline and similarly, Chris Hemsworth’s high rolling, off the grid thief isn’t that far removed from the one he played in Blackhat with only a couple of different life decisions nudging them into other directions. With this in mind, the two fellow Avengers do well, with Hemsworth mining a similar arc to Robert DeNiro’s Neil McCauley as his neat, professional world is etched away when he falls for Monica Barbaro’s down to earth passer by. Conversely, Ruffalo seems to be channeling Peter Falk as his schlubby cop tries to turn his life around while chasing after clues.
But its exactly here that we find possibly the best thing about Crime 101 and just because there is threat, car chases and tense robberies abound, the film isn’t shy about truly boring into the minutiae of these people’s lives and it’s truly refreshing to have moments like Ruffalo joining a yoga class for his health and Berry having issues with the way her age is treated at her firm are every bit as vital to the plot as Barry Keoghan’s sweaty thug, or the location of the next haul of diamonds. Not only does it give the ensemble the dimension that other wannabes lack, but it all adds to the vast complexity of the plot which unfolds at a gradual pace, forcing all the characters to find they have less and less room to maneuver despite having all of LA to move around in. Of course, it wouldn’t be one of these types of movies without the requisite moment where the cop and the crook end up face to face, and Crime 101 is no different, but again, despite having the chemistry of Thor: Ragnarok on side, Layton is smart enough to keep both Henworth and Ruffalo apart until the absolute right moment and the result is pretty damn wonderful.
Some may find this more restrained, controlled swing at the sprawling crime epic a bit too downplayed, especially if you’re expecting a more guns blazing version of events. But those people will be overlooking something far more valuable than cordite and diamonds and that’s a crime flick that makes sure that all of its varied human components are richer than the haul the anti-hero is trying to score and none of the screeching tyres and clenched standoffs would mean anywhere near as much without them.
Wonderfully judged and confident enough to move at its own place and let things build to a natural crescendo, Crime 101 may be the closest anyone’s ever going to come to climb that insurmountable mountain that Michael Mann built over thirty years ago. But taken on its own merits, this is one caper movie that just as intricately plotted as the heists found within – crime may not pay, but it certainly pays off…
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