This is a solid, methodical crime thriller, very much in the mold of classics such as 1971’s The French Connection, 2010’s The Town, and director Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) and Collateral (2004).
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| During their first date, Maya (Monica Barbaro) becomes increasingly puzzled when Mike (Chris Hemsworth) is unable — or unwilling — to share personal details about his childhood, friends and family members. |
The best line from that novella, which firmly establishes the milieu in which these individuals operate: “Laws are made to be broken, with rules that are made to be followed.”
The on-screen result is a treat.
Layton doesn’t waste time with any back-story. We briefly meet our three primary characters as each greets a new day: Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), cool, calm and collected; Sharon Coombs (Halle Berry), exhausted from another night of fitful sleep; and Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), rumpled, flustered and unhappy.
Matters then focus on Mike, as he begins another of his precision-planned heists of jewels being transported to underworld buyers. He intercepts and takes the place of a guard, which grants him access to the actual transfer point, orchestrated by the shady jeweler (Payman Maadi, as Sammy Kassem). Davis brandishes a gun, sufficient to frighten everyone into cooperation; clearly, variations of this approach have succeeded many times before.
But this time things go slightly awry, because an intermediary brought along a younger, unseasoned companion who behaves rashly.
Clearly shaken, Mike nonetheless keeps his rendezvous with his fence and “sponsor,” known only as Money (Nick Nolte). They discuss Mike’s next scoped-out job, involving the robbery of a posh Santa Barbara jewelry store. But Mike has had second thoughts, concerned by too many variables.
Meanwhile, high-end claims adjuster Sharon Coombs (Halle Berry), dressed to kill, is doing her best to sweet-talk über-rich Beverly Hills asshole Monroe (Tate Donovan) into allowing her company to insure and protect all the flagrantly expensive elements of his upcoming marriage to his trophy fiancée, Adrienne (Andra Nechita).
Sharon has long been promised partnership at her firm, but she’s beginning to realize that her smarmy boss, Mark (Paul Adelstein), has been dangling this hope while using her as glamorous “bait” on wealthy clients. And, on the north end of 50, Sharon worries that she may be reaching her sell-by date … particularly when Mark augments his team with a much younger cutie.
When Kassem calls the police; Lou catches the case with his partner, Tillman (Corey Hawkins). Recognizing the modus operandi, Lou is convinced that this is the latest job by the same individual responsible for a couple dozen earlier, similar heists, all of them committed at stores along the 101 freeway. But he’s alone is this belief, and his ongoing obsession has diminished the respect he once possessed, as a capable investigator.
Lou is an old-style cop, who trusts his instincts and believes in following even the tiniest of leads. This attitude has made him a dinosaur, increasingly at odds with a boss who prefers clearing cases off the department ledgers, to actually solving who perpetrated them.
Ruffalo is sublime in the role, easily credible as a dogged perfectionist who simply smiles and shakes his head when confronted with arguments, or what he considers are stupid imperatives. But this has taken a toll; Lou's personal life is in shambles.
The same is true of Mike. In part because of having been spooked by what went wrong with his latest heist, he’s reassessing an existence that has been marked by isolation. After a more-amusing-than-most “meet cute” with Maya (Monica Barbaro), he impulsively asks her to dinner: something we assume he never has done before.
Not wanting to lose out on the Santa Barbara caper, Money hands it to another of his young protégés, Ormon (Barry Keoghan), an obvious loose cannon who is guaranteed to make a mess of things.
At which point, we’re not even half an hour into this film. Layton dumps these characters into an emotionally bubbling pot, then stirs with gusto. The result develops as cleverly and methodically as Mike’s heists, with tension mounting to the screaming point when we hit the third act.
Hemsworth, like Robert Downey Jr., possesses acting chops far beyond the goofy heroics of his Marvel Universe efforts. Hemsworth is quite persuasive as a once-capable loner whose detached façade is splintering, with long-suppressed emotions struggling to the surface. Much as Mike is smitten by Maya, he has trouble looking her in the eye, and he answers in vague generalities when she asks about family, friends, childhood and anything else.
Keoghan, operating leagues away from his Oscar-nominated performance in 2023’s The Banshees of Inisherin, is mesmerizing as the sociopathic, volatile, unbalanced Ormon. He’s a reckless, impulsive maniac who does this work because he gets off on the danger.
Berry is equally persuasive, giving Sharon a quietly troubled bearing. She’s an excellent judge of character, shrewdly able to suss people out, and certainly attuned to why she’s sleeping so badly. Barbaro, Oscar-nominated for her performance as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, is captivating as Maya: a woman who has embraced the limits of her emotional reality. She likes Mike, but she won’t waste time on a guy who won’t let her in.
One of Layton’s best touches is the degree to which he allows us to infer details, rather than blatantly displaying them. We gradually assume that Money has long groomed a series of wayward young men into doing his bidding: an unhealthy and unbalanced relationship.
We similarly recognize that Lou’s obsession has destroyed his marriage to Angie (the always fine Jennifer Jason Leigh, sadly underused). Sharon’s tarted-up attire, somewhat jarring in her initial scenes, also serves a purpose later made clear.
Layton’s film is a bit too long, at 139 minutes, but he holds our attention; he and editors Julian Hart and Jacob Secher Schulsinger keep things moving, and the obligatory vehicular chases are well staged.
Everything builds to a combustible — and unexpected — finale: job well done.
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