High Stakes, Low Originality
There is a specific kind of disappointment that comes with a “pre-release” screening. You walk in hoping to be the first to see a modern classic, especially with a heavy-hitting Don Winslow adaptation and an epic cast like this. Unfortunately, Crime 101 is a movie that spends so much time trying to be “cool” and “mysterious” that it forgets to be actually engaging. It’s a 6/10 at best, and honestly, that’s being generous because the cast is doing the heavy lifting for a script that feels like it was written by an AI tasked with “Generic Heist Thriller.”
The Accent Turmoil
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Chris Hemsworth. We know him, we love the rumbly Australian charm, but here he’s trying to disappear into an American accent to play Mike Davis. The problem? He “drops” the accent on numerous occasions, and it becomes a total distraction.
I get what they were going for: he’s a man of mystery hiding his true Robin Hood-esque robberies. But because of the accent dropping, it felt like the accent was what he was actually hiding. Instead of wondering what his next move was, I was just waiting for the next vowel slip. It pulls you right out of the tension.
The “Movie Magic” Romance
Then there’s the subplot with his love interest Maya, played by the attractive Monica Barbaro. Look, we’ve all seen the “lonely thief meets the girl” trope, but this felt particularly lazy. In one scene, Hemsworth texts a straightforward request to take the lady to dinner, and she just replies with “yes” immediately? In what world? It felt completely fake. There was no chase, no friction, and zero stakes in their relationship development. It didn’t feel like a romance; it felt like a checkbox the director wanted to tick so the protagonist seemed “human.” We all know real life and good cinema… it just doesn’t happen that easily.
A Bright Spot in the Fatigue
If there is a reason to sit through the runtime, it’s Halle Berry. She was excellent in her performance as the fatigued career lady. You could genuinely feel her disgust for her life as it was. However, the writing let her down yet again. Placing her character at the mercy of the “white male boss who disrespected her” felt like more yawn-worthy, recycled writing that we’ve seen a thousand times before.
Tropes, Partners, and Yawns
The movie does have some bright spots. The cat-and-mouse tension is palpable at times, and Barry Keoghan is predictably great as the unlikable, violent motor-head kid. He’s the kind of villain you love to hate. But then the script falls back into the “Standard Police Procedural” handbook. We get the classic “Detective whose partner doesn’t believe him.” There’s a scene where one is waiting outside for the other to walk the crime scene, and the dialogue is so typical I actually found myself yawning.
The Verdict
The film had brief swaths of thrilling tension, but overall it was nothing like the mastery of ‘Heat’ or the king of that category in my opinion: ‘Point Break’ (Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze). And speaking of ‘Point Break’, they never circled back to Nick Nolte’s character, which was a glaring miss. The name ‘Crime 101’ suits this adaptation because it offers a very basic intro 101 study/course about movies of this genre. By the time the credits rolled, I realized there wasn’t a single moment that made me say, “Wow, I’m really having a good time here.”
Final Score: 6/10