Crime 101 (15)

Writer/director Bart Layton (American Animals) should probably be paying Michael Mann royalties, but his LA heist film is a slick, fun time.

This is an ultra stylish armed robbery thriller about a thief who is highly controlled, super-cool, super-groomed, and naturally looking for the “walkaway money” of the time-honoured one last job. Mike (Chris Hemsworth) commits jewel robberies with the laudably nonviolent precision of a ballet-dancer. He is controlled by a leathery old tough guy called Money (Nick Nolte), who once mentored Mike out of foster care and into crime. But Mike’s hits are all along California’s Route 101, a pattern spotted by LAPD’s single honest cop, detective Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), as dishevelled and smart as Columbo.

Halle Berry and Barry Keoghan round out the cast, the former a glamorous, put-upon insurance underwriter for high network individuals, the latter a psychotic criminal brought in by Mike to undercut him on a job.

The result is several cuts above the usual film with DNA from Mann’s Heat and Thief. It’s a film that revs the engine entertainingly and loudly. A watchable spectacle, leaving a sizzling streak of rubber on the tarmac.