A coda to the 'Peaky Blinders' series

    Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man serves as a sufficiently honorable coda to a series created by Steven Knight and starring Cillian Murphy. The series spread over 36 episodes, beginning in 2012 and concluding in 2022. 

   During its run, the series found deep and surprising moments for a cast that created indelible characters, even when the stories began to feel a bit repetitive.

    Before watching the one-hour and 52-minute movie version now playing in select theaters and bowing on Netflix on March 20, I viewed the entire series. It definitely helps to have some of the Peaky Blinders details in mind when you see this movie version. 

   Another caution: You'll probably miss some of the characters who made the series so memorable. Too bad many of them had the misfortune of dying before The Immortal Man begins.

     I'm not sure how director Tom Harper, a series  veteran, and show creator Knight, who wrote The Immortal Man, could have topped the brilliant conclusion to the sixth season. What they offer echoes past achievements more than it surpasses them.

    So where does The Immortal Man begin? Tommy has withdrawn into rural isolation with his loyal associate, Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee), serving as a helpmate. Essentially, Tommy has given up on the world.

    The world, however, has moved on. The story has entered the 1940s. Britain is embroiled in World War II, and Tommy's recently discovered son, Duke (Barry Keoghan), who entered the series during its final year, runs the Peaky Blinders gang with little regard for any gangster ethos.

   Untamed and reckless, Duke must be saved from himself, which means Tommy needs to put aside the biography he's writing and return to Birmingham to reestablish the sense of family that has all but vanished from the gang.

   Tommy initially resists the call to return, even when his sister (Sophie Rundle) pleads for a comeback. He changes his mind when Kaulo (Rebecca Ferguson), the twin sister of Duke's late mother and a Gypsy seer, visits. Tommy, as immersed in Gypsy spirituality as ever, must meet his destiny. 

   One of the problems with a movie version of Peaky Blinders is that the characters can't develop the novelistic complexity the longer format not only allowed but often used to maximum effect. We really got to know the characters, even those we came to fear or despise.

    The plot builds on a trend established in the final season. Fascists in Britain pose a threat to a country that's already under bombardment. Tim Roth portrays Beckett, a Nazi sympathizer involved in a German counterfeit currency scheme that's meant to undermine Britain's already shaky economy and lead to the country's collapse.

    The third act resolution of Tommy's efforts to thwart the plot deftly build tension and excitement. At times, though, the movie overdoes things. A fight between Tommy and Duke finds them wallowing in the mud of a pigsty, for example. 

   During the final season, Tommy's ambition had already begun to curdle into resignation. His inner torment intensified. Now, Tommy is a bit of a dead man walking, a depleted husk of a man who lives among ghosts but has been denied the peace of joining them. He eventually dons his trademark cap and long overcoat, but much of the old juice has drained away.

     Beyond that, the key idea of family connection, with all its tests, contortions and possible betrayals, was stronger in the series, partly because the theme here is more stated than deeply felt.  

     A familiar question arises. Can Tommy find redemption? Tommy's attempts to foil a Nazi plot offers him an opportunity to do something good in the world, the best a man such as Tommy, who has accumulated a large body count, can hope to achieve.

   Whatever you think about this addition to the Peaky Blinders catalog, I can't imagine that devotees -- even those who wind up being mildly disappointed -- won't want to see it. 

    When a graying Tommy rides into Small Heath on a black horse, the movie offers a mix of nostalgia and stirring imagery: A lone savior comes to the rescue of those who lack the will to get the job done. Sure we've seen it before, but this, after all, is Tommy Shelby.

     As a series fan, I'm glad to have seen The Immortal Man, primarily because Tommy Shelby has earned his place in gangster lore as a keenly intelligent but brutal man whose thoughts remain hidden but whose eyes reveal the echoes of the poetry that haunts his damaged soul. 

'The Bride!' celebrates its excesses

  It's unlikely anyone will accuse Maggie Gyllenhaal of stinting on ambition in The Bride!,  a wild farrago of a movie that resists classification. 

  Is The Bride! a horror movie or a Gothic romance? Is it a feminist reimagining of movies of the 1930s, particularly James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein? Is it a comedy that pays homage to Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein with a rousing rendition of Puttin' on the Ritz?

  Or, is it a showcase for an uninhibited display of ferocity from Jessie Buckley in another fearless performance?

  As it turns out, The Bride! is all those things, a movie that makes no bones about celebrating its excesses, of which there are too many.

   Gyllenhaal's big-screen gamble doesn't entirely, but her  approach yields intermittent payoffs. Perhaps the genre it mostly resembles is one in which two crazy outcasts tear across the American landscape, eventually finding love.

    Buckley appears in two roles, occasionally interrupting the narrative for portentous speeches delivered by Frankenstein's 19th-century author, Mary Shelley, who inspires a manic outburst by Ida, also Buckley, a Chicago moll who winds up dead in the movie's prologue.

    Enter Christian Bale's Frankenstein, a.k.a. "Frank," who visits Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), a scientist who has been experimenting with reanimating the dead. Poor Frank. He's lonely and craves the companionship of a woman who, like him, was created, not born. He yearns for a soulmate.

     Though she expresses reservations, Euphronious helps Frank dig up the recently deceased  Ida. Employing whizzing, flashing equipment that's heavy on old-fashioned dials and gauges, Euphronious jolts Ida back to life. 

     Initially, Ida, who can't remember her past, hardly seems an ideal partner for Frankenstein, played by Bale with a mixture of sincerity and goofiness, punctuated by occasional bursts of violence, mostly to protect Ida.

    Nothing if not loyal, Frank sticks to his lovelorn mission. He and Ida wend their way across the country, making stops at a roaring Chicago party, a sophisticated New York City black-tie event, and a rural drive-in theater.

    The wandering duo frequently attends movies, all of which star romantic lead Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal). As we all once did, Frank learned about romance from the movies.

    Irate Chicago mobsters and a detective duo (Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz) pursue the fleeing renegades, as images of Bonnie and Clyde flash through our collective heads.

   Despite efforts to mask his appearance, Frankenstein can't always hide his stitched-together face, and Ida's tousled blonde hair and blood-red lips are accompanied by an ever-present stain on her right cheek, a souvenir from her reanimation. When it's popularized on tabloid front pages, her look turns into a fashion statement.

      I can't say that Gyllenhaal blends the movie's cornucopia of ingredients into a satisfying whole. She creates a mixed-bag of a movie that dashes across the screen, dazzling with its theatricality, amusing with its satiric fillips, and repelling with splashes of body horror. 

    Eclectic to the max, The Bride! practically drowns itself in movie love as it tries to match Buckley's expressions of unrestrained wildness. Say this, though: The Bride! earns the exclamation point in its title.

       

       

     

'Hoppers': fun with a message

  Mabel's journey isn't exactly standard issue -- at least not for a 19-year-old college student.

    During the course of Pixar's animated feature, Hoppers, Mabel (Piper Curda) projects herself into an artificially created creature that looks exactly like a beaver, so much so that she fools real beavers. 

   Mabel has a cause, but don't prep for a lecture; Mabel's story delivers an environmentally oriented message without short-changing fun.

 A resident of the small town of Beaverton, Mabel is a staunch environmentalist who balks when the town's mayor (Jon Hamm) destroys  the natural habitat where beavers and other creatures mingle. 

  A nearly completed thruway threatens her beloved glade. 

  Mabel's appreciation for nature began with her grandmother (Karen Huie). Grandma told Mabel that nature provides sanctuary and balance. Sitting quietly in the glade, Mabel could feel as if she belonged to something bigger than herself, and all would be well.

   As is often the case with animated features, the supporting characters add color and, in this case, a bit of human and creature chaos. Kathy Najimy voices Dr. Sam, the scientist who has invented the machine that transfers human brains into animal droids. The machine allows Mabel to  become a trusted advisor to King George (Bobby Moynihan), a beaver who has learned the art of accommodation with human ambitions. A major supporter of the Pond Rules that govern the animals, George needs to have his rebellious spark reignited.

   Meryl Streep provides the voice for Insect Queen, an imperious character that's more interested in fighting than persuasion. 

  A diverse array of creatures enters without too much concern for verisimilitude, particularly in the movie’s third act. Director Daniel Chong even finds a way to add a giant shark named Diane (Vanessa Bayer) to the mix.

   Toward the end, the movie probably overindulges its action inclinations, but not enough to spoil a mostly enjoyable hunk of animation. 

    What's missing? Some of the pop-cultural sizzle that the best Pixar features have captured. Still, Hoppers entertains while delivering a hopeful message that suggests we do better when we work together.

   I know that feels like a greeting card bromide, but, hey, we are talking an animated feature that may not be fully grown up, even if it avoids being infantile.

   For the record: The movie acknowledges that when nature functions properly, some of its characters might have to feed on their companions. A last-minute rescue saves Loaf, a beaver voiced by Eduardo Franco, from Ellen, a mostly friendly bear (Melissa Villasenor).

    Not to worry. Life in the glade may have its dangers, but they beat the disasters represented by thoughtless human intrusions.

A family story with gender twists

 Strong currents of gender fluidity run through Jimpa, a movie from Australian director Sophie Hyde. Relying on heavyweight casting centering on Olivia Colman and John Lithgow, Hyde tells a family story about characters struggling with multigenerational issues and fragmented family ties.

    Hannah (Colman) decides that her family should visit her gay father (Lithgow) who the family calls Jimpa. Jimpa and his former wife tried to make their marriage work in Australia, but Jimpa left Australia to become a gay activist in Amsterdam, where he has lived for years.

    Jimpa's grandchild, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde), a nonbinary transgender 17-year-old, idolizes Grandpa, regarding him as a hero who fought for gay rights. Hannah decides it's time to expose her child to the kind of diverse "queer" community available in Amsterdam. It's almost as if she wants Frances to peruse a menu of gender options.

    Hyde takes the drama back and forth in time, including snippets that illuminate Hanna and Jimpa's backgrounds. 

    A charismatic gay man, Lithgow's Jimpa isn't entirely at ease with the younger queer generation: He struggles with pronouns and loathes bisexuality, deeming it a cover-up for the gayness he has fought so hard to bring into the open. Still, he has a generous attitude toward the grandchild he clearly loves. 

   Hyde creates an easy-going ambiance around Jimpa whose gay friends have known each other for years and who've lived through the AIDS plague. Jimpa is an AIDS-positive survivor, but a recent stroke has left his family worried about his future.

    Early on, Frances propose to live with Jimpa for a year, a choice Hannah greets with trepidation. Still, she does her best to negotiate emotionally volatile terrain while allowing Frances as much freedom as possible. 

    A filmmaker by trade, Hanna believes -- or wants to believe -- that it's possible to make a film without conflict. She's working on a film about her father.

    The third act turns into a bit of a "right-to-die" drama when Hannah's sister (Kate Box) shows up. She disagrees with Hannah about how to deal with Jimpa's physical decline.

      Gently assembled, Jimpa tackles difficult issues and avoids drawing harsh lines in the sand, but it never finds a solid core around which the confusion of its characters can swirl. That's another way of saying the movie can't quite decide whose story it's telling, or maybe it tries to tell too many, doing none of them full justice.

An Iraqi childhood under Saddam

  Engaging as it is disturbing, The President’s Cake follows the adventures of Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef), an Iraqi third-grader whose life is upended by a draconian school requirement. Lamia is assigned the task of bringing a cake to class as part of the national celebration of Saddam Hussein’s 50th birthday. 

 A major problem immediately arises. Lamia, who lives with her grandmother in the country’s Mesopotamian Marshes, can't find the ingredients for even a simple cake, partly because prices have soared due to a UN-imposed embargo.

   Early on, Lamia’s grandmother (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) takes the child to the city to live with someone who has agreed to take the child in. Too old and ill to cope with a nine-year-old, Grandma panics when Lamia flees, traveling through Baghdad's streets and markets in search of ingredients for her cake.

    Lamia doesn't lack for motivation. Her teacher (Ahmad Qasem Saywan) is a martinet who acts as a loyal surrogate for Hussein, treating his students as servants to his dictatorial demands.  

   During Lamia’s urban quest, she’s joined by Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), a schoolmate and the son of a disabled beggar. Lamia carries her pet rooster, Hindi, on her journey, her way of clinging to something familiar from home.

   Most of the people Lamia encounters aren’t eager to help. A mailman (Rahim Al Haj) proves an exception. He enters the picture when he gives a ride to Grandma and Lamia on their way to Baghdad.

   At the time, the mailman is accompanied by a soldier  traveling to his wedding. Gravely wounded by an American bomb attack, the prospective groom has lost his eyesight. “If she’s ugly, I won’t know it,’’ suggesting there's little left for him but residues of rueful humor.

   For his part, Saeed has been assigned the task of procuring fresh fruit for the birthday celebration, a task that’s as far beyond his reach as is Lamia’s pursuit of a cake.

  The two kids struggle to achieve their goals while Grandma hectors the uncooperative local police in hopes that they will locate Lamia.

  Lamia’s naïveté and resourcefulness make her an endearing character. Her mission-oriented focus contrasts with Saeed’s more improvisational efforts, augmented by Saeed's skill at theft. The two sometimes engage in staring contests to see who’ll blink first, a reminder that we’re watching kids who are ill-prepared for the tasks at hand.

   The President’s Cake reveals the harsh realities of a society in which scarcity and cruelty have been normalized. At one point, a seedy chicken merchant with perverse intentions tries to take Lamia to a porn theater in exchange for the baking soda she needs. Occasionally, bombers roar overhead, another sign of the hardships faced by the country’s beleaguered population. 

  Working mostly with non-professional actors and benefiting greatly from Iraqi locations, first-time director Hasan Hadi plays the indifferent bustle of everyday life against the personality of a plucky nine-year-old who, like many other Iraqi kids, deserved better.

    

    

A touching film from Colombia

 Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) published two books of poetry as a young man and hasn't written anything since. Hapless and ill-kempt Oscar -- the main character in the Colombian movie A Poet -- lives with his mother, drinks excessively, and rants about Colombian poetry. When he's invited to read at a Medellin school devoted to poetry, he shows up too drunk to do anything but embarrass himself. As a last resort, Oscar, with a major assist from his sister, lands a job teaching at a high school. When one of his students -- Rebeca Andrade's Yurlady -- shows promise, Oscar presents her as a promising poet who deserves admission to the school where he, too, once was considered to have potential. As it turns out, the people who run the school view Yurlady as a representative of impoverished youth who'll help them raise funds and enable the school to tell a story about how it provides opportunities to young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks. Slowly, Oscar and Yurlady develop a trusting relationship, which  -- for Oscar -- may be a substitute for the estranged relationship he has with his own daughter (Alisson Correa), who's understandably wary about her alcoholic dad. Shot in 16 mm by director Simón Mesa Soto, A Poet leans heavily on Rios's shambling performance, which captures Oscar's mix of desperation and drunken bravado, but keeps the character a couple of degrees away from being pathetic. Not surprisingly, Yurlady is more interested in being an ordinary  teenager than in serving as a surrogate for Oscar's unrealized ambitions, and Oscar eventually outrages the girl's family. Soto's small-scale realism suits material about someone whose life can't, and probably never will, match the way he sees himself, but it lands gently enough to be touching. 

This dark comedy doesn't sting

  Becket Redfellow's unmarried mother was disowned by her wealthy father when she insisted on giving birth to her son. Dad evidently didn't like the situation, perhaps disapproving of Mom's choice of a mate and not knowing the poor guy would expire soon anyway.

   A Dickensian childhood ensues. Mom gives birth, and dotes on her son. She insists that he's entitled to "the right kind of life," i.e., one in which he becomes an heir to the family's vast fortune, something her father never would consider. When Mom dies, young Becket is left on his own.

   Once he reaches adulthood, Becket decides to secure what he believes to be his rightful portion, Becket (Glen Powell) thinks that it would be appropriate for him to murder all the family's heirs,  leaving him as the only remaining option.

  Ambitious and charming, Becket devises various ways to eliminate his competition, knocking off his relatives one by one, even after one of them (Bill Camp) accepts him as a member of the family's financial business. 

   Always good, Camp adds welcome humanity to the proceedings; he believes the family owes Becket some help. More considerate than the other character, Camp's Warren Redfellow even finds a way to eliminate himself as a possible inheritor.

    Others are more cunning. During his childhood, Becket met Julia, who has grown into an ambitious woman (Margaret Qualley) for whom all decisions begin and end with money. She married for money, but that didn't work out. She now believes she can cash in on Becket's journey toward riches.

  Woefully underdeveloped, Qualley's ruthlessly conniving Julia is never fleshed out. Julia becomes an  emblem of greed and not much more. 

    Becket's plan receives a bit of a setback when he falls in love with the girlfriend (Jessica Henwick) of a cousin (Zach Woods) whom he murders. 

   Woods, by the way, has a nice turn as a guy who thinks he's an artist because ... well ... because he thinks he is.

   Not especially troubled by conscience, Becket devises ways to murder his relatives that are meant to be darkly comic -- killing his aunt with a poisoned tooth whitening device or setting off a dark room explosion. But these murders aren't nearly as amusing as those found in No Other Choice, another dark comedy centering on murdering the competition.

  Where No Other Choice found thematic richness in its premise, How to Make a Killing presents a world in which the privileged rich are assumed to be indulgent, useless,  and worthy of elimination. 

   Of the major performances, Henwick stands out as a likable woman who left the highly competitive world of fashion to become a high school English teacher, hardly a job that leads to a life of luxury.

    A framing device is made clear from the outset: The story begins with Becket on death row, unfolding in flashbacks as he calmly tells a visiting priest about his criminal exploits. At various points, Becket could have quit and lived a well-heeled life, but he couldn't stifle his urge to have it all.

  Director Jay Patton Ford, who directed the much better and far more trenchant Emily the Criminal, seldom achieves the biting sharpness such a story requires, and the successive murders proceed almost by rote, as if the filmmakers were thinking out loud about what to do next.

  All of this builds toward a confrontation between Becket and the head of the family, Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris). Becket improbably avoids detection by two FBI agents, but the movie's approach to its major confrontation proves even less credible. 

   Loosely inspired by the 1949 Ealing comedy classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, How to Make a Killing needed more bite, satirical sting, and genuine shock. Too often, it seems to be sticking to the surface as it advances through its plot without finding much by way of a cutting edge.

'Pillion' dominated by sex and power

 

 We live an age of initials -- from MAGA to DEI to BDSM. BDSM? BDSM, in case you didn't know, involves bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism. Director Harry Lighton's Pillion may put those initials into slightly wider use, although a movie that makes sexual dominance and submission part of -- or perhaps the entirety of its concerns -- isn't likely to transcend niche viewing.

   Some have seen Pillion as a subcultural romcom, which seems a stretch to me. It has also been called a Domcom, which is too clever by half.

   To begin with, some background: The word "pillion" refers to the person who sits on the back of a motorcycle, playing second fiddle to the driver and clearly acknowledging his subordinate position.

   The movie centers on Colin (Harry Melling) and Ray (Alexander Skarsgard), the duo that lives through Colin’s drama of sexual self-discovery. Colin lives with his mom and dad, works as a parking lot attendant, and sings in a barber shop quartet. Minus his sexual explorations, he’d be one more nonentity living in a dreary London suburb, a person of little or no distinction.

   Ray spots Colin at a local pub and begins instructing him in the ways of submission. Ray obviously knows that Colin, practically a poster boy for loneliness, is an easy mark and will do his bidding. Ray, on the other hand, is cool, handsome, and composed; he’s everything Colin isn’t. 

    But here’s the twist: Colin doesn’t aspire to be Ray. He aspires to serve Ray.

   As it turns out, Ray is a cruel taskmaster. I won’t describe the demands he places on Colin, except to say that they begin when, after an early sexual encounter in an ally, Ray asks Colin to lick one of his boots. In his sleekly tailored leather outfit, Ray looks ready should anyone ever make a comic book movie that needs a superhero who’s into sexual dominance.

   As the movie progresses, the two become a couple, with Colin sleeping on the floor of Ray’s bedroom (Ray won’t allow him in his bed), shopping and cooking for Ray, and changing his appearance so that he can blend into the gay biker culture in which the nomadic Ray has taken temporary root. Ray gives Colin a chain with a lock attached, an obvious symbol of subordination.

   Colin’s parents — a befuddled dad (Douglas Hodge) and a mom who’s dying of cancer (Lesley Sharp) — accept Colin’s gayness. But Mom craves the relief of knowing that her son will settle down with a “nice” boy. Fat chance. Still, the movie gives Sharp a strong moment as a mom who fears for her son's future.

   Scenes of psycho-sexual dominance are more explicit than you might expect and aren’t easy to watch, although some see them as darkly funny. Lighton, who wrote the screenplay based on the novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, plays Skarsgard’s aloof indifference against Melling’s addled subservience. Their relationship contains the seeds of a deadpan comic burlesque.

   It’s possible to see Ray as a typical literary figure, the mysterious outsider who schools a less-sophisticated student in the ways of  life, in this case, the BDSM life, which Colin willingly enters. He’s not a prisoner. As current parlance would have it, he’s a consenting adult.

   Obvious questions evolve. How much can Colin take? Will he ever tire of watching Ray polish his motorcycle while he pines for attention? Is there a point at which Collin will want more from the lopsided power relationship to which he seems to have become addicted?

   Lighton takes us to that point and contrives for Colin to exercise a bit of self-assertion, a minor triumph but one that might be seen as the movie's redeeming raison d'etre.

   Pillion isn’t 50 Shades of Grey, another movie about dominance. Nor is it easily compared to Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl, which coated its kinky core with a glossy veneer. Let's just say that Lighton leans in the opposite direction, and leave it at that.  

   And unlike either of those movies, Pillion makes little attempt to go much beyond the world Colin and Ray inhabit, aside from Colin's impossibly awkward attempt to please his mother by bringing Ray home for dinner. 

   Melling makes a convincing schlub who begins to discover a sense of belonging, and Skarsgard conveys Ray’s intelligence, hauteur, and insistently expressed authority. 

  But with or without Colin's consent, Ray’s behavior tips close to sadistic abuse, and Lighton's unwillingness to flesh out Ray’s character presents us with a conundrum. It makes him a man of mystery, but also raises questions. We have no idea how Ray sustains himself or how became the man he is.

   Lighton and his cast surely knew that Pillion wouldn’t be everyone's tub of popcorn. Yes, there’s humor here, and yes, the performances are well-adapted to the material, but I don’t know how much can be gained from its collection of abuse and degradation, even if the movie's characters are eager to immerse themselves in it. 

A tasty heist movie set in LA

  Chris Hemsworth sheds Thor's hammer, and Halle Berry gives one of her best performances in the new heist thriller, Crime 101. In adapting a 2021 novella by Don Winslow, director Bart Layton delivers a throwback caper movie that knows its business and pretty much sticks to it.

   Set in present-day Los Angeles, Crime 101 centers on Mike Davis (Hemsworth), an accomplished diamond thief who targets jewelry stores positioned along the 101. The freeway provides a convenient escape route for Mike's meticulously planned robberies.

   Like many thieves, Mike is looking for the final heist that will allow him to start a new life -- albeit with a fortune at his disposal.

    Of course, someone stands in Mike's way.  Mark Ruffalo plays Lou, the rumpled but good-humored detective who's more interested in catching the man he dubs "The 101 Thief" than in keeping his bosses happy.

     Layton weaves others into his LA tapestry. Berry's Sharon sells insurance to high rollers who fear the loss of their big-ticket belongings, not all of them legally acquired. Barry Keoghan arrives as Ormon, a scary loose cannon motorcyclist who becomes a threat to Davis. 

     In a small role, Nick Nolte adds flavor as Money, the gravel-voiced guy who finances Mike's efforts and ushered him into the crime.

      Layton seasons the screenplay with a few side issues. At 53, Berry's Sharon is supposedly losing the eye-candy glow that helped her sell insurance. That's probably why her male-dominated firm has been dragging its feet on a long-promised partnership.

     Sexism makes for a trendy issue that Layton allows Berry to forcefully denounce, but the movie doesn't climb on a soapbox, and Layton efficiently introduces the elements necessary to keep the plot flowing. He also  includes shots of LA's homeless to remind us that the city's glamor isn't all-inclusive.

     Mike's strictly business approach is challenged when he meets an attractive young woman (Monica Barbaro). He begins to feel an attachment, not a good thing in the thieves' trade. 

    Hemsworth has a steady hold on the role of a criminal who can't totally bury his humanity. Mike carries a gun but never uses it. He has never hurt anyone during his work. He's a thief who tries to be decent about it.

     A complicated screenplay slowly pulls the various characters into the same story, which includes several well-designed, stomach-tightening car chases and a cameo appearance by Jennifer Jason Leigh. Leigh plays a woman who's dumping Lou, mostly because guys like Lou don't have happy home lives.

     You may find plot holes along the way, the movie needn't have extended to 145 minutes, and its LA gloss can feel vaguely familiar. But Layton's screenplay teases us with a nice collection of conflicting rooting interests, and its characters are interesting enough to keep Crime 101 on track. Nice job.