“Crime 101” is about social terraces

This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.

A social democratic coup film? No, the Yankees probably wouldn’t use the term, which is stigmatized in the United States, but the sentences that are uttered about how a bad upbringing can lead to the path of crime, about how a capitalist can never get enough – do they sound like the Sossas? At least from the old tribe.

But then this is also an old-school coup film without explosions and digital opulence. Just one man with a plan – and a bunch of enemies out to capture him. Chris Hemsworth (Thor in the Avengers series) plays Davis, a melancholic man with velvet eyes and a flair for jewel theft. He is pursued by the even sadder Lou (Mark Ruffalo in another seedy cop role). Favorite Barry Keoghan plays Ormon, a beefy bull terrier in human form. Halle Berry’s insurance agent Sharon also gets involved.

“Crime 101” circumvents the old film myth of the fundamentally good criminal; clever, meticulous in his planning, but at the same time sensitive and ethically gifted. He does not use violence and only steals from those who deserve to be robbed. In other words, a fairy-tale character who is quite far removed from the rohypnol-addled criminals of reality who spread lead without thinking about the consequences.

Mike carries out his diamond thefts near the California coastal road number 101, but one can assume that the numbers in the title should also refer to the English expression “101”, i.e. “Basic Course”, or the slightly more negative “Form 1A”.

It’s admittedly a bit defeatist to give your film that name, but it’s still self-deprecating, perhaps a recognition that this is by no means the first coup film to roll out of the Hollywood factory – and certainly not the last.

It’s a subgenre disappointed by cheap party tricks like endless car chases, laser-protected diamonds and…George Clooney. But then there are also stylistically raw works like “Hell or High Water” (2016) and perhaps above all Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995), where Robert De Niro and Al Pacino collide in beautiful dramatic slow motion.

“Crime 101” doesn’t reach such heights, but like “Heat,” it manages to anchor the tension in a kind of realism. Not least in how you get a glimpse of those not normally seen in this genre: the garbage collectors, the homeless, the lonely. In short, director Bart Layton (“The Imposter”) seems to have a sensitivity to class differences, social injustices and, well, here he also escapes a scene of unjust and deadly police violence – as if it were a prophetic (the film was shot last spring) commentary on the devastation of ICE in Minneapolis.

But now I’m trying to turn a sparrow into a peacock, but the tendency is still there – and it all ends with the super-rich overpowering them. Which can probably be seen as subversive in Trump’s empire.

And it’s no coincidence that (Mona Sahlin’s favorite song) Bruce Springsteen sings about struggling workers on the soundtrack.

See more: Barry Keoghan Top 3: “The banshees of Inisherin” (2022), “Saltburn” (2023), “Bird” (2024).

Read more film and television reviews in DN