This year has already seen some great leading duos in action movies with The Rip (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) and The Wrecking Crew (Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa). Up next on that list is Thor vs. The Hulk, or rather an American-accented Chris Hemsworth vs. Mark Ruffalo in Crime 101. The plot sounds like your typical heist movie (i.e. hella fun), and critics who were able to catch early screenings are weighing in as the crime thriller hits the 2026 movie calendar on February 13.
The cast of Crime 101 is very promising, with Halle Berry playing an insurance broker who gets caught up in jewel thief Mike Davis’ (Hemsworth) crimes, as Detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) closes in. Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte and more will also make appearances, and Damon Wise of Deadline says they don’t disappoint:
Clocking in at a very ambitious 140 minutes, Crime 101 is a hangout movie that would lend itself very well to a spinoff TV series, with a stellar supporting cast that consistently surprises. ... The key trio, however, more than carry the movie; Ruffalo channeling Robert Duvall’s world-weary heroism, the gnomic Berry keeping her powder dry until she explodes, and Hemsworth with about as much as anyone’s got these days to play a modern-day Frank Bullitt.
Ben Travis of Empire rates the movie 3 out of 5 stars, saying it’s “solidly enjoyable and well-constructed.” However, the movie is aptly titled, because for all of its slick presentation and impressive cast, Travis says, Crime 101 struggles to go beyond the basics. The critic continues:
[Director Bart Layton] and cinematographer Erik Wilson capture L.A. with crisp digital photography, lending the whole thing an air of cool confidence. Two car chases, in which Layton puts pedal to the metal, deliver welcome adrenaline boosts amid the slightly overlong runtime. The core players all deliver too, proper movie stars in the kind of original grown-up thriller that comes along all too rarely. It’s particularly enjoyable to see Berry back in this kind of fare, as the character the audience can truly root for. … It’s just that you’ve seen it all before.
Kristy Puchko of Mashable calls Crime 101 — an adaptation of the novella of the same name in Don Winslow’s 2020 collection Broken — a "competent" crime thriller, shining with star power and “stellar” car chases, with enough twists to keep audiences on their toes. In comparison to Bart Layton’s past projects, however, there’s something missing. Puchko writes:
There's a slow-burning sex appeal between various stars, though centered around Berry. Layton's painting of L.A. is rich in neon lights against dark nights, evoking a sense of danger even in mellower sequences. But rather than feeling like Layton is upping his game, bringing bigger names to his unique brand of nuanced and enthralling storytelling, Crime 101 feels like he's showing Hollywood he knows how to play by their rules.
Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire gives the movie a B-, calling it “far from terrible,” especially thanks to Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo. However, in expanding the novella’s story, Bart Layton adds some unnecessary ingredients to the pot, the critic says, “with characters intersecting and allegiances and motivations often contradicting one another.” Lattanzio concludes:
[Crime 101 is] a pricey-looking made-for-Amazon crime epic that will stream fine on Prime, will perhaps play even better on airplanes, but also may even deserve your eyes and ears in theaters. That’s even as, creatively, this film feels like it’s hijacking at least 15 other, better movies, whether [Michael Mann’s] Heat and Collateral or Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive or Bullitt with Steve McQueen, simply by the green shade of Hemsworth’s car.
Clint Gage of IGN gives the upcoming action movie an “Okay” 6 out of 10, saying it has everything a heist thriller ought to have, but not much else. There are interesting ideas at play throughout the film, Gage writes, that get swapped out in service of a less-compelling plot. The critic continues:
Crime 101 is an okay enough entry into the heist movie canon. Director Bart Layton and stars Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo all try to add flourishes to the old reliable crime thriller formula, but these tweaks can’t get out of that formula’s shadow for long enough to be a whole new MO. While Crime 101 might be able to teach a class on the foundations of the genre, its biggest struggle is getting its students to care.
Of all the critics’ assessments that I went through, most of them seem middling, praising the director’s portrayal of Los Angeles and providing fun action scenes. And despite the stellar cast doing apparently solid work, there’s still the feeling that critics were left wanting something more in terms of originality.
Either way, Crime 101 has been Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 87%, so it would seem that the good outweighs the bad. If this crime thriller sounds like a fun way to spend two-plus hours, you can catch it in theaters now, as of February 13.
