The shadow that the iconic film Heat has cast over the heist genre is long. It’s pretty hard to do a film these days that centers on both the thieves and the police, without first thinking of Michael Mann’s iconic film. So while Crime 101 does share a lot of notes with Heat, it also does a lot differently, and a lot of it does really well despite some issues.

Written and directed by Bart Layton, Crime 101 is about a few characters who are interlocked by a series of circumstances in L.A.. There’s Mike (Chris Hemsworth), who pulls a string of robberies along the 101 highway without hurting anyone at the scene. Hot on his tail is Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), a washed-out cop in the LAPD who buys into his theory that there’s a skilled thief doing jobs near the 101, but it’s a theory that isn’t shared by his colleagues. Then there’s Sharon (Halle Berry), who works at a high-end insurance company, who feels the ground beneath her feet begin to fall away as she worries about her age and position in the company. There’s more supporting characters played by talented actors, including Barry Keoghan as Ormon, a violent and impulsive thief, Nick Nolte as Mike’s fence, Monica Barbaro as Maya, a woman Mike is attempting to date, and Corey Hawkins as Lou’s partner. Heck, even Jennifer Jason Leigh shows up for a scene.

If you go into Crime 101 expecting an action heist film, akin to Den of Thieves or Wrath of Man, you may be disappointed. This is a slow burn drama with basically no action in this film, save for a brief car chase. And there’s not that much thievery, actually, but there is a lot of planning and investigating. Instead, this is a character-driven film about the people who happen to be in this circumstance. I noticed the thematic throughline of the pursuit of financial security for a cast of characters who are dealing with their own personal insecurities. All the characters are fleshed out and layered, and by the end, we understand fully why certain characters made the choices they did. Mike is insecure about himself and carries a lot of shame about his past, while Lou’s is about his faith in his job, which is more concerned about stats and compliance than being right. Meanwhile, seemingly disconnected from this is Sharon, who is stressed out about her age and self-worth, to the point of sleep deprivation. The movie is framed around a meditative yoga class, focusing on breathing and calming down for these characters who are in high-stress environments.

It’s a well-shot movie too, with some creative camera placements used throughout, and a pulse-pounding score from Blanck Mass. It’s a bit long, at two hours and twenty minutes with credits, but I can’t really think of anything I would cut out that said, except for maybe the buildup towards a polygraph that didn’t go anywhere. If anything, I would’ve maybe added another twenty or thirty minutes to the runtime to flesh out some of the secondary stories. I would have probably changed elements of the relationship between Mike and Maya; that said, it did feel a bit aimless from the get-go. He’s a walking red flag, but she’s cool with it until she’s not. I guess that’s what happens when you look like Chris Hemsworth. So, it did feel a bit undercooked. Likewise, Ruffalo’s midlife crisis with his ex-wife could have also been fleshed out more, but we do understand his characterization enough with the limited context given to us and his character arc is represented by non-verbal cues thanks to his presentation, which I liked. Also, and this is such a nitpick, but the movie does have a tendency to make L.A. feel small by having the main characters cross paths by pure circumstance more than a few times in the movie. L.A. is a huge city, so to have these characters drive by each other, or be within the vicinity of each other throughout the film, did feel a bit weird, especially since it was ultimately irrelevant to the plot.

But as far as Heat-lite films go, I had a good time with Crime 101. It’s familiar and a touch disjointed, but I was engaged throughout nonetheless. It’s a competently made film that has style and a solid cast who all showed up to work. Instead of going in looking for something akin to Heat, go in with something like Task in mind, which prioritized characters. If you can accept that this is a character-driven film and not a slick action caper, which is how it was marketed, I think you’ll enjoy it despite some shortcomings. I did and would be curious to read the novella of the same name by Don Winslow now as well.