TL;DR: Crime 101 is a neon-soaked, character-driven heist thriller that proves Chris Hemsworth can do brooding anti-hero just as well as superhero. It’s not reinventing the crime genre, but it executes the formula with style, tension, and enough emotional depth to make the getaway feel earned.

If you’re anything like me, crime thrillers are cinematic comfort food. Not the greasy fast-food kind, but the slow-cooked, Scorsese-seasoned, Mann-marinated kind that makes you question your moral compass while admiring a perfectly executed getaway. So when I sat down for Crime 101, I wasn’t just hoping for a decent heist movie. I wanted that Heat-meets-Drive electricity. I wanted existential stares across neon-lit highways. I wanted engines roaring like they were auditioning for Fast & Furious: Existential Crisis.

And somehow, Crime 101 actually delivers. Not flawlessly. Not without leaning a little too hard on genre DNA. But delivers nonetheless.

Let’s talk about why this stylish crime thriller works, where it stumbles, and why Chris Hemsworth might have just found his most interesting role outside the MCU.

The Setup: A Master Thief, a Haunted Detective, and a Freeway Legend

At its core, Crime 101 is built on a concept that feels like it was brainstormed during a late-night Heat rewatch: a near-mythical thief operating along the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, pulling off surgical robberies with a code. He’s not flashy. He’s not chaotic. He’s disciplined.

Hemsworth plays Davis, our soft-spoken master thief, and yes, the comparisons to Ryan Gosling’s Driver are inevitable. But here’s the thing: Davis isn’t a blank slate. He’s warmer. More conflicted. Less “I stare at walls and brood” and more “I’m trying to outrun myself.”

Opposite him is Lou, played by Mark Ruffalo, a detective unraveling both professionally and personally. Divorce looming. Career stalled. Obsession growing. If Davis is all precision and silence, Lou is frayed edges and late-night paperwork.

Then there’s Sharon, portrayed by Halle Berry, an insurance specialist who gets pulled into the orbit of this freeway phantom. And orbit is the right word. Crime 101 feels like a solar system of characters circling one central gravitational force: the legend of this elusive criminal.

It’s a classic cops-and-robbers structure. But director Bart Layton doesn’t treat it like a checklist. He treats it like a character study wrapped in a heist movie.

Chris Hemsworth Ditches the Hammer for Something Sharper

We’ve seen Chris Hemsworth as a literal god in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve seen him bulldoze through mercenaries in Extraction. What we haven’t seen enough of is Hemsworth dialing it down.

In Crime 101, he’s not flexing. He’s calculating.

There’s a quiet confidence to Davis that feels earned rather than imposed. Hemsworth plays him like a man who has rehearsed every contingency in his head a thousand times. The way he scans a room. The way he grips a steering wheel. The way he pauses before making a decision. It’s subtle work, and honestly, it’s some of the best acting he’s done outside of Thor.

What surprised me most is how restrained the action is around him. If you’re expecting wall-to-wall chaos, you’re in the wrong movie. Crime 101 understands that tension is built in silence. In glances. In the hum of a car engine before a job goes sideways.

And when the action does hit? It hits clean.

The car chases are refreshingly coherent. No shaky-cam nausea. No over-edited nonsense. You can see the geography. You understand the stakes. It’s the kind of craftsmanship that makes you lean forward instead of squinting.

A Love Letter to Heat and Drive — Sometimes a Bit Too Much

Let’s address the neon-lit elephant in the room. Crime 101 wears its influences like a tailored suit.

The existential anti-hero vibes scream Drive. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between thief and detective feels ripped straight from Heat. Even the LA cityscape is framed like a love letter to late-night urban melancholy.

But here’s where it gets interesting: it doesn’t feel lazy. It feels reverent.

As someone who has rewatched Heat more times than I’d care to admit, I found myself spotting visual nods and structural parallels. The difference is that Layton isn’t trying to out-Michael Mann Michael Mann. He’s remixing the formula for a slightly more intimate, slightly more modern audience.

The runtime, clocking in at over two hours, might raise eyebrows. But I never felt the drag. Instead, it gives the characters room to breathe. And in a genre that often prioritizes plot mechanics over emotional fallout, that breathing room matters.

Still, there are moments where the script edges into cliché territory. The morally conflicted criminal. The obsessed detective no one believes. The “one last job” energy hovering over everything. If you’ve lived in this genre as long as I have, you’ll see some beats coming from a mile away.

But predictability doesn’t always kill tension. Sometimes it heightens it. Like watching a Greek tragedy play out on asphalt.

When Crime 101 Slows Down, It Wins

The biggest surprise for me wasn’t the heists. It was the conversations.

Crime 101 thrives in its quieter scenes. A late-night exchange. A tense negotiation. A moment of vulnerability that slips through the cracks of bravado. That’s where the movie feels most alive.

Mark Ruffalo brings a jittery desperation to Lou that contrasts beautifully with Hemsworth’s composure. He’s not a superhero here. He’s exhausted. Haunted. Slightly unhinged. And it works.

Halle Berry’s Sharon could have easily been reduced to plot device status, but she injects her character with grounded frustration. She feels like someone stuck in a life she didn’t sign up for, suddenly confronted with the possibility of chaos as liberation.

Even Barry Keoghan, as the volatile competitor Ormon, plays his role with just enough unpredictability to keep the tension humming. He’s less mastermind and more loose cannon, which creates a different kind of threat.

The editing and cinematography deserve serious credit. The camera lingers when it needs to. Cuts sharply when stakes spike. Los Angeles feels both sprawling and claustrophobic, like the city itself is complicit in these crimes.

The Climax: Almost Perfect, Slightly Too Tidy

No spoilers here, but I’ll say this: the final act builds beautifully.

The pacing tightens. The emotional arcs converge. The suspense feels earned rather than manufactured. I was locked in.

But the ending? It edges just a bit too close to melodrama. A few threads wrap up a little too neatly, like the movie didn’t fully trust its audience to sit with ambiguity.

And that’s a shame, because Crime 101 is at its strongest when it trusts silence and implication over exposition.

Still, even with that slightly polished bow at the end, the journey there is worth the price of admission.

Why Crime 101 Works in 2026’s Action Landscape

We’re living in an era of bloated blockbusters and CGI overload. Crime 101 feels like a throwback in the best way possible. It’s mid-budget. Star-driven. Character-focused. A crime thriller that remembers tension doesn’t require a sky beam.

In a year already stacked with leaner action contenders, Crime 101 carves out its space by being confident in its simplicity. It doesn’t reinvent the genre. It refines it.

And honestly? Sometimes that’s enough.

Crime 101 is a slick, stylish crime thriller that leans heavily on genre classics like Heat and Drive but still finds its own rhythm. Chris Hemsworth delivers one of his most restrained and compelling performances, supported by a strong ensemble and razor-sharp filmmaking. It may flirt with cliché and wrap things up a bit too neatly, but the ride is tense, polished, and absolutely worth taking.