Though it’s being promoted as an action film, Bart Layton’s Crime 101 is actually a triptych of character studies. Adapted from the novella by Donald Winslow, the film focuses on three people who’ve each reached the end of their respective ropes, which compels them to make some rash, desperate decisions. Propelled by an ever-increasing sense of pace and buoyed by exceptional performances from its three leads, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry, the movie is a welcome throwback to the more grounded, relationship-oriented thrillers of the 1970s, similar to Klute and Three Days of the Condor.
While the director was in Chicago promoting Crime, I sat down with Layton to discuss the making of the movie. That it is unique in its approach and content in today’s popular cinema wasn’t lost on him.
“I think it’s hard to get people into the cinema for original material that’s not based on a superhero or a very famous story,” he said. “I really wanted to deliver a great night out at the cinema, one that includes a roller coaster ride of adrenaline and all of the action elements you expect. But I also feel like my job is a filmmaker is to give you characters you connect with. There’s probably a version of this movie where you’ve got a kind of James Bond-like jewel thief who’s really infallible, but I don’t think you’d feel as connected and engaged with him; you wouldn’t care as much. What I’m trying to do is sort of find that balance and also smuggle in some themes and ideas that give you a little more to think about.”
In addition to the three principal actors, Barry Keoghan, Nick Nolte and Jennifer Jason Leigh are also in the cast. I asked Layton how he was able to procure such a roster of talent.
“I was as genuinely surprised as anyone,” he said, laughing. “I’ve also thought that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and I apply that to more or less everything. The worst that can happen is someone will say ‘no,’ but I was genuinely surprised that every first choice we approached said ‘yes’ instantly. They were like, ‘I haven’t read anything like this for a long time. I haven’t watched a movie like this for a long time, and I want to be part of it.’ So that was sort of surprising and proves my point. It’s hard to convince modern film executives to make a commercial movie that also has something artistic or thought-provoking in it. But I feel like that’s the thing we should be supporting, that’s what we should be offering audiences and treating them with respect, which hasn’t happened much at the movies recently.”
In addition to Crime, Layton also directed the criminally underrated American Animals (2018) and the shocking documentary The Imposter, both of which deal with people who operate outside the law. I asked him if he was fascinated by criminals and criminal behavior.
“I would say less about crime and more about the idea of people operating outside of the conventional,” he said. “We all have a fairly conventional existence within a spectrum, and then there are these that do not subscribe to that, for whatever reason. That, I think, is kind of interesting. American Animals was really about identity, and it was about lost young men of a generation who had been promised that they were going have special lives and their reaction when they discovered that wasn’t the case. So, I think crime gives you a great structure to ask interesting questions about identity and status.”
While it is a cliché to say a city is a character within a story, Los Angeles and its duality of glamour and seediness are key components in the film. I asked Layton about the importance of and difficulty in shooting there.
“For me it was a dealbreaker if we couldn’t shoot there,” he responded. “There were budgetary questions, because the reality is L.A. is amazing and you get the best crew in the world. You get the best stunt drivers in the world. You get the best backdrop. But it’s very, very, expensive. It was suggested we shoot in Australia or South Africa, but for me it was like, that’s just never gonna happen. I’d rather not make the film then make it outside of L.A. and try and pretend. I also made sure that we were photographing parts of the city that you weren’t familiar. People were saying you can’t have Halle Berry and Chris Hemsworth on a street corner at a taco stand in Echo Park where you got the whole of reality rushing by. But we captured that, and some other great moments that added a realism to the film that I thought it needed.”
Crime 101 begins in theaters Friday, Feb. 13.
