Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This article features plot details of Crime 101.
Crime 101 has all the necessary components of a Heat clone. Born in the Michael Mann mold, writer-director Bart Layton’s sprawling Los Angeles crime drama draws parallels between cops and robbers in a setting defined by extremes. Crime 101‘s crosstown trek shows a feckless ruling class that keeps amassing power, while middle-class have-nots struggle to make ends meet within and without the confines of the law. In this world free of principles, a cop finds hope in a crook with a code.
Layton is hardly the first filmmaker attracted to the steady propulsion of Mann’s beat. In 2018, writer-director Christian Gudegast found similar gold in his grimy L.A. thriller Den Of Thieves, a version of Mann’s L.A. takedown that cranks up the machismo in its depiction of a lawless Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the jarhead bank robbers they infiltrate. Yet for all the superficial pleasures these movies find in Heat‘s icy cool action, they stumble just before the credits roll. While Heat ends on a moment of human connection found in violence and the unsettling catharsis it contains, its offspring—like Crime 101—want audiences to go home happy, undercutting the complexity in service of a smile.
Thanks to its weekly timeslot on TNT and Christopher Nolan’s cape-based take, The Dark Knight, Heat has grown in esteem since its 1995 debut. Though a sleeper hit at the time, best known for the long-awaited screen meeting of The Godfather Part II stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Mann’s three-hour crime saga has become the thinking person’s ’90s action movie. Well aware of Heat‘s long tail to profitability, Mann-inspired action is one of the few sequel-free avenues that Hollywood continues to explore. No wonder then, in his pursuit of thoughtful action (which includes a Mann film of his own), Chris Hemsworth brings the steely precision of his Blackhat character to Crime 101‘s tight-lipped, well-dressed, and obsessive-compulsive main character, James. Like De Niro’s Neil McCauley, James prefers caution to chaos, carefully planning his crimes so there’s little room for error. When a well-planned stickup goes sideways, he becomes rattled by his lack of control. The Vincent Hanna (Pacino) to Hemsworth’s James McCauley is Mark Ruffalo, playing Detective Lou Lubesnick. Together they form the yin and yang of the film’s L.A., two sides hoping to find peace on the 101 while lamenting a distinct lack of honor in their respective fields.
Crime 101 turns Heat‘s characters into archetypes so similar that lines from one film could describe characters in the other. In Heat‘s famed diner scene, Hanna describes his life as “a disaster zone […] I got a wife, we’re passing each other on the down-slope of a marriage…because I spend all my time chasing guys like you around the block.” McCauley’s response could describe James’ philosophy: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” The movie tracks their personal relationships as they attempt to build a life inside lifestyles that don’t allow for one. Just like the guy in Heat whose best pickup line is describing “a book about metals,” James attempts to date the first woman who talks to him, Maya (Monica Barbaro). Taking the spot of Ashley Judd is Crime 101‘s Sharon (Halle Berry), an insurance adjuster caught between both sides of the law. Other character stand-ins emerge throughout the plot, such as Nick Nolte as fence Money, who operates in the mold of Heat‘s fence Nate (Jon Voight), and Barry Keoghan, who menaces the picture as the unpredictable Waingro (Kevin Gage) figure. Keoghan even gets a suitably weird name: Ormon.
In moving Crime 101 from San Diego, the location of Don Winslow’s original novella, to Heat‘s L.A, Layton’s film begins to draw unfavorable comparisons. Rather than watching economic classes clash in a series of short stories about ex-cons trying to go straight—stories that give Heat its depth—this conflict now occurs on the city’s great equalizer: crosstown traffic. Layton uses shorthand for the Heat‘s deeper themes without having to show the people living through those realities. It flattens the experience of L.A. crime, making it exclusive to the characters in the film. Heat‘s mastery is in its sprawl, not its concision, creating a film that echoes the city it moves through.
But the ending is really where these Heat clones falter. At the end of Heat, Neal McCauley breaks his rule to “walk out in 30 seconds” flat, so that he can exact revenge on Waingro for botching the opening heist. This allows Hanna to catch up to his perp, eventually killing him in a runway shootout. As McCauley dies, Hanna holds his hand. It’s a tragedy: Two men caught in careers that will be the end of them, with the survivor recognizing that this criminal is the only one who truly understands him.
Neither Den Of Thieves nor Crime 101 shoots for such an operatic conclusion. In both cases, it’s not the second lead, but the wild-card villain who is vanquished, allowing the heroes and antiheroes to fight another day. In Den, Big Nick (Gerard Butler) kills heist honcho Merriman (Pablo Schreiber), allowing Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) to make an exit that sets up a sequel. Similarly, Crime 101 concludes with a Mexican standoff that sees James killing Ormon to save Lou. Lou returns the favor by allowing James, the perp he’s been chasing the whole movie, to go free, choosing to lay the blame on Ormon, a suspect who won’t screw up his boss’ all-important clearance rates. All’s well that ends well.
Like Den Of Thieves, Crime 101 leaves its characters in a better position than when they started. James and Lou have new lives to pursue, and plenty of money with which to do it. The adventure has made them better people, ones who aren’t so rigid in their rules—a particularly bizarre conclusion for Lou, a principled cop who once believed that getting the right guy was more important than hitting the right numbers. Crime 101‘s ending is a copout, implying that the L.A. way is to not sweat the small stuff, like a cop planting evidence or laying a crime on the wrong man. Everyone gets their crowdpleasing moment. Crime 101 is Hollywood, but Heat is pure L.A., impossible to navigate without getting your hands dirty.
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