Exceptional Crime a study of desperation
Though it is being touted as an action film, Bart Layton’s gripping Crime 101 actually consists of multiple character studies, examining three people who’ve each come to a crossroads in their lives. Captivating and smart, the film benefits from exceptional work from its three veteran leads and old-school pacing, in the tradition of directors Howard Hawks and Don Siegel. Much like the taut features they made, there’s not an ounce of narrative fat to Layton’s adaptation of Don Winslow’s novella, each scene briskly moving the story along, steadily building a head of steam before delivering an honest, ironic conclusion.
One could say that Davis (Chris Hemsworth) is very careful when keeping his professional and private life separate. Others might say he’s paranoid. Living very sparely, the thief covers his bases, double and triple checking every detail in the heists he commits. That he works alone frees him of many complications. That he lives a solitary life does as well. He’s good at what he does, but his handler, Money (Nick Nolte), is growing impatient, as there’s a big job they’ve planned that Davis is hesitant to pull off. When his latest theft goes a bit sideways, he becomes even more gun shy.
Meanwhile, Lou (Mark Ruffalo), a veteran Los Angeles detective, is an anachronism in the department where he works. His younger supervisor criticizes his old-school methods, his coworkers shunning him for eschewing a more modern approach. Still, his gut tells him he’s on to something where solving a rash of high-dollar thefts are concerned. He’s noticed a pattern as to the type of establishments that have been hit, as well as their close proximity to Route 101, presumably used as a means of escape.
Sharon’s (Halle Berry) concerns are of a different sort. Working at an insurance agency that caters to high-profile clients, she’s well aware the clock is ticking for her. Passed over again and again for a promotion she’s earned many times over, she can’t help but notice a younger new hire, also a woman, is now getting the attention and accounts she used to receive. There’s no future for her here and not much of a one in her private life either, the woman content to live alone.
I won’t go into the details concerning how these three cross paths. Suffice it to say, the sense of desperation each of them feels results in them making some questionable decisions that lead them all down a road they would have never contemplated. That Davis finds himself falling for Maya (Monica Barbaro) complicates his situation; conversely, when Lou’s wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) leaves him, he also finds himself confused and uncertain. What none of them see coming is Ormon (Barry Keoghan), a dangerous live-wire who’s also a protégé of Money’s. That he’s out to prove something makes him reckless; his impulsiveness and lack of maturity cast him as an agent of chaos to be reckoned with.
Layton and his cinematographer Erik Wilson capture the deceptive shimmer and inescapable seediness of Los Angeles to great effect, especially during the night-time sequences. Through their eyes this is a city that preens yet can never hide its true nature, its criminal behavior an inescapable consequence of its disparate duality.
The work from the cast is exceptional and, in some cases, surprising. As always, Ruffalo provides a solid center, bringing a weariness but conviction to Lou that has us in his corner from the start. The actor’s calm, steady approach inherently conveys the character’s moral integrity in ways dialogue can’t. The flipside of the coin would be Keoghan, a bundle of jangled nerves, his live wire energy perfectly capturing the dangerous unpredictability of the character. That you tense up whenever he’s on screen is a tribute to the young actor’s work.
I’ve always contended Berry is an effective performer when working with a strong director and such is the case here. Her ability to show vulnerability and strength is effective, providing an accessibility to Sharon’s anger, fear and hope that’s compelling. In the end, it’s Hemsworth who’s most surprising, the normally gregarious, broad actor giving a contained, introspective performance that speaks to Davis’ pain and confusion. This is a man who, despite his imposing appearance, is quite fragile, afraid of intimacy, reluctant to trust based on his past experiences. The poignancy Hemsworth brings to the role is the key to the payoff in Layton’s surprisingly moving climax.
As the title suggests, Crime 101 is a primer for how and why some criminal behavior occurs. The film suggests that when the systems we have in place fail those caught up in them, a decision must be made to either continue to have faith in or turn your back on them in an effort of self-preservation. And while the movie does not condone such behavior, the justifications it provides for it are hard to ignore, implying that if we do so, it is at our peril. In Theaters.
Darkly comic Good a reflection of the moment
Watching Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, proved to be one of the most whiplash-inducing filmgoing experiences I’ve had in quite some time. Initially engaged by its intriguing time travel premise and the captivating, manic performance by Sam Rockwell, I found a second act revelation so repellant, it took me completely out of the movie. That it was able to hook me once more was due to the impassioned performance by Haley Lu Richardson, whose character enters the spotlight in the later half. Yet, upon seeing it a second time, while my objections to it remained, its ultimate thematic purpose won me over, as did Matthew Robinson’s script, which dares to confront pressing societal issues most turn a blind eye to.
Things start off with a bang as a Man from the Future (Rockwell) barges into a Los Angeles diner, disrupting its late-night patrons. He claims this is his 117th time living through this particular evening, as the dire happenings of his own era compel him to travel back in time to alter history. Seems there’s a young boy in the area who is creating an AI program that will ultimately take over the world. All the man wants to do is instill some software containing safeguards that will prevent that from happening. A relatively simple assignment, one would think, but it winds up being fraught with peril.
The man contends he’s yet to pull together the right combination of people from amongst the patrons to complete his mission. After quelling their disbelief, he convinces Susan (Juno Temple), Mark (Michael Pena), Janet (Zazie Beetz) and Scott (Asim Chaudhry) to come with him. At the last minute, he impulsively enlists Ingrid (Richardson) as well.
As the night plays out, flashbacks provide background for the key players. Mark and Janet are high school teachers, their students’ lives overtaken by social media. Inadvertently, they’ve triggered an app that turns their young charges into zombies. Ingrid, who happens to literally be allergic to wi-fi and cellphones, has recently lost her boyfriend to AI. He has voluntarily entered into a sleep pod where he will be constantly fed a series of images of a “better world.” Janet is the most tragic of the lot, her son having been killed in a school shooting. This has become such a common occurrence that parents have their slain children cloned, a process partially funded by the government. Out of necessity, she opted for a model that comes with ads, her “son” randomly speaking of a favorite drink he’s promoting.
Robinson’s nightmarish vision of the future bares more than a passing resemblance to The Matrix. Yet, his folding in of more concrete issues makes it more relevant and powerful. The conceit that AI and social media will rob us all of our humanity is taken to horrific extremes, particularly where the issue of school shootings is concerned. That the parents of the slain can so flippantly talk about manipulating the most recent clone of their child so they’ll be “funnier” or “not as uptight” speaks to the callousness that develops through lack of human interaction. On the surface, this seems ridiculous yet we see examples every day of unfeeling behavior in government and our neighborhoods, adding weight to the argument.
That the souls of the younger generations are in danger of being subsumed by social media is a reality that’s playing out before our eyes. That high schoolers are portrayed as an army of zombies is spot on, as is the idea that we can no longer believe in everything we see. One of the most intriguing and entertaining aspects of the film is that anything that can be thought of can be brought into being and that perhaps none of what we see is actually real. All stops are pulled during the climax, as we’re bombarded with one striking image after another, the vision of one character beaten back by a whirling maelstrom of wires and gadgets is one I won’t soon forget.
There are times when the story sags and I think Verbinski is aware he’s overloading the audience with too much information at times. As a result, he keeps the story moving from one event after another, pushing the viewer from one mind-bending moment to the next, not allowing us time to digest all we’ve seen and heard. Still, there’s no denying the film’s propulsive energy, provided primarily by Rockwell, whose manic persona is perfectly suited for the film. Equally impressive is the always-reliable Richardson, her displays of vulnerability and selflessness providing a necessary emotional hook.
A cult movie in the making, Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, benefits from multiple viewings. Narratively dense and frantically paced, you’re likely to catch things when re-watching that slipped by you, many of which put aspects of the story in a new light. And while this cautionary tale is well done, I fear its message will be lost in the vast sea of meaningless media that constantly buffets us. Good’s warning isn’t prescient, but rather its dystopian scenario has already come to be. We’re just too distracted to see it. In Theaters.
Storage a fun, sci-fi throwback
You’ll be forgiven if you think about The Blob (1958) and other B-movie, sci-fi monster flicks while watching Jonny Campbell’s Cold Storage. The director and screenwriter David Koepp, adapting his own novel, are fully aware they’re drawing from a mine that’s been dug into many times before. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, they wisely take a humorous approach to a story that could be, and has been, rendered as a straight horror film. Instead, they take the ironic route, managing to elicit laughs and jolts in equal measure, told efficiently in a little more than 90 minutes.
Koepp’s premise is actually quite clever. Seems when Skylab disintegrated during reentry in 1979, not every piece of it burned up in the atmosphere or was recovered by NASA. An oxygen tank, containing a fungus the space agency sent up in the hopes of developing a vaccine, landed intact in the Australian Outback. Problem is, the fungus has changed into an organism that infects every living thing and once it takes control, causes its host to explode, thus helping it spread further. When reports are made that an outbreak relating to this has occurred, scientists Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson), Trini Romano (Lesley Manville) and Hero Martins (Sosie Bacon) are called into contain the threat. Only two of them survive.
Jump ahead to modern-day Kansas. Travis Meacham (Joe Kerry) is working a dead-end job at a self-storage facility in a rural part of the state. Content to coast for a while, he deals with his idiot boss (Gavin Spokes), does what he’s told and keeps his head down. That all changes with the arrival of a new co-worker, pre-med student Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and a dead battery in a smoke alarm…or, so they think. Following the incessant chirp, they discover a false wall and behind it, an enormous generator that powers a massive underground containment unit. Seems the warehouse was once a military storage unit. No fair guessing what it holds and what’s about to escape.
Campbell uses the orderly, multi-room structure of the warehouse to great effect, its many entrances, exits and corners great places for those infected by the fungus to hide or jump out from. The jump scares are effective but of the sort where you’ll be laughing once you come down from the ceiling.
As for the threat in question, computer-generated effects are used to chart the way the green, moss-like fungus spreads, both through the air and on surfaces. Those infected, both humans and animals, aren’t around long before they erupt in a Technicolor splatter, but, you know, in a fun way.
Kerry and Campbell are a delight, playing well off one another, their chemistry and attraction to each other obvious. Their banter is so effective, I wouldn’t mind seeing them paired up again. As for Neeson, it’s good to see him poking nature at his action-hero persona which he’s run into the ground. His work here and in the recent Naked Gun reboot suggests he’s much funnier than we ever gave him credit for. And under the category of “What the hell are they doing here?” is Manville and Vanessa Redgrave. Though the former is currently starring on Broadway in Oedipus and the latter has over 150 credits to her name, I guess they still have bills to pay.
Though you likely won’t remember a thing about it a week after seeing it, Storage is an entertaining enough time filler, provided you’re in the mood for a comical bit of body horror. Afterward, whenever cleaning, be prepared to look askance at every stain or blemish you might come across. In Theaters.
This article appears in February 12-18, 2026.
