[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I think CRIME 101 succeeds because it is exactly what the makers set out to make: a good solid actioner for adults. The type of movie that Sam Peckinpah or Don Siegel or Walter Hill might have made in the 70s. Some of their movies like GETAWAY are now considered “classics”, but they were just thought of as taut well made genre fare at best in their day. And that is where CRIME 101 succeeds and why it surprised me.
There are not a lot of movies of its kind anymore, and if there are, they then try so hard to be relevant, as if they had to trump everything that came before them, that they feel overwrought. This movie is smart enough to not go into that direction and sticks to its guns: it wants to be a clean, confident, grown‑up crime thriller. No more, no less. And it’s no less.