For a crime thriller centered on heists along the 101 freeway, Crime 101 never successfully merges its ensemble into a cops-and-robbers tale. There’s plenty going on with an abundance of car chases, corruption, standoffs, and thievery, most messy. But rarely do the players involved with it feel like people with hopes and desires, acting more like a collection of cliches that passively progress through this stop-and-go narrative.

There’s a frustratingly meticulous way the film frames Chris Hemsworth as the calculating, elusive diamond thief Mike Davis. While he does leave an easy enough trail to track for his robberies, following a freeway route, he is surgical enough in his work to make it a standard routine. Even if something goes awry, as with an unexpected gunshot, Mike has backup plans to evade capture. He also keeps his identity and past strictly concealed, making his blossoming romance with Monica Barbaro more tiresome than intriguing for his locked lips. Trailing him is the mustachioed underdog, Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), known for being on thin ice with his department for his critical views of his cases. Additionally thrown into this mix is the insurance broker, Sharon Colvin (Halle Berry), and the heated rival thief, Ormon (Barry Keoghan).

This is a fairly impressive cast, with Nick Nolte thrown in as Mike’s aging crime boss. With all this talent, it’s a shame the film never builds, with its characters who stick strictly to their slow lanes. Chris Hemsworth should be a mysterious figure, but his closed-off nature rarely reaches that level, making him more boring than compelling. He doesn’t even have much chemistry with Barbaro’s character, who tries to loosen up the thief with some dancing before sex, progressing so milquetoast it’s no wonder the film forgets about her. Ruffalo has the look of a weary detective, but he gets all dressed up for a film that wastes his bitter divorce, desire to physically improve himself, and moral frustration with his department. Halle Berry feels like she’s in an entirely different movie, as her arc plays a smaller role in the series of robberies, and she needs to stand up to her discriminatory boss, who has denied her a long-delayed promotion. And Barry Keoghan is just a hothead. There’s not much more to him beyond being the wildcard more for how short-tempered he is with violence than anything else.

The assembly of this movie seems more concerned with placing pieces on the board than ever thinking too much about the strategies at play. More thought went into how Mike makes his getaway and how Lou gathers evidence than into how remarkable their circumstances become for being intertwined. It shifts from being painfully procedural in its investigations and robberies to a muted contemplation set in California. Director Bart Layton seems to favor a brooding atmosphere in his attempt to make the city and freeway more of a character, but it never quite works. The flipped aerial shot of the 101 traffic is a good shot, but it’s going to take more than a tilted frame to engross me in this caper, especially since it’s being used more than once. There are some solid car chases thrown into the mix and some tense moments of gunpointing and shouting, but they never do the heavy lifting of making up for characters framed more as pawns than players.

Crime 101 is far too basic for the cast it assembles and the heist it stages that comes off more routine than rousing. Before entering the theater, I found it strange that the novella had somehow been blown up into a 2.5-hour film and joked that it was probably because every central actor wanted equal screen time. That, sadly, seems to be the case, given how isolated these characters become and rarely interact, as though the film can’t decide whether it wants to be a hyperlink narrative. Even Mike’s mistakes amid his crimes feel right on cue, not a sign that he’s getting rusty or that something else is amiss. For a film that features some speedy car chases, this is a thriller that stays so far below the speed limit you want to pass them in traffic.

Not available on any streaming platforms.

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