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Reviews
Stylish and Compelling, “Crime 101” Provides a Bit of Heat On Screen This Month
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 23 February 2026 14:52
- Written by Brad Balfour
Hemsworth & Ruffalo in "Crime 101"
Film: “Crime 101”
Director: Bart Layton
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Halle Berry, Tate Donovan
Too many times, crime films try hard to be different while remaining within the genre’s confines. Some directors believe that developing a movie with complicated, even labyrinthine plot points or subplots that don’t necessarily add anything to the story or resolve themselves makes the movie a unique proposition. As written and directed by Bart Layton, “Crime 101” does something similar. Yet by the time the film ends, it pulls together most of the convolutions into something of a satisfying ending.
Certainly, this heist thriller demonstrates the director’s many ambitions. And given its source material — author Don Winslow’s 2020 novella of the same name — it’s no wonder. With Winslow’s experience in the late ‘80s as a private investigator, the author had accumulated lots of great source material which lends his deft novels an authenticity that’s been effectively transferred to film. Screenwriter Eric Roth, who was developing another of Winslow’s books for the screen, gave Robert De Niro the novelist’s book (“I Heard You Paint Houses”) to read for research. The legendary actor became so enthralled with it that he and Scorsese ended up adapting it into a great film, “The Irishman.” Clearly, something authored by Winslow makes for a great starting point.
The film’s twisty, complex storyline connects its parts in surprising ways. Layton takes advantage of a stellar cast to finesse it throughout. Chris Hemsworth, as accomplished thief Mike Davis, plays his character with a combination of sturdiness and anxiousness –– a conundrum that such a career path would likely engender.
The film begins with a scene that establishes what an effective jewel thief Mike has been with his heists taking place along the 101 freeway. Although he has baffled police, Los Angeles detective Lou Lubesnick is undeterred as he pursues the elusive thief by developing a detailed profile of his crimes.
As Mike’s nemesis, Lubesnick (the excellent Mark Ruffalo) tracks him and tries to establish his modus operandi. The scruffy officer (looking something like Columbo) believes he has cracked Mike’s pattern and is determined to bring him down before the next job. He tries to get the other detectives in his division –– like his erstwhile partner, Detective Tillman (Corey Hawkins) –– to join in his efforts. Yet no member of the team really gives him his due, more concerned with arrest numbers rather actual crime solving.
When Davis sets his sights on the ultimate score, his plans intersect with those of Sharon Colvin (Halle Berry who makes a great return to the screen.) She plays a disenchanted insurance broker/adjuster who is cajoled into helping Mike accomplish the score of his life.
But thanks to a betrayal by his fence, Money (Nick Nolte), Mike has the deranged and manic Ormon (actor Barry Keoghan at his most jacked up) on his ass. This young criminal is sent to nip at Mike’s heels and ultimately to eliminate him while hijacking his heist.
The film features not only a top-flight main cast but also a great ensemble of actors who add cinematic depth to the narrative. As Maya, Monica Barbaro (who had played Joan Baez to much acclaim) becomes a tentative love interest for the secretive thief. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Angie, Lou’s ex-wife, who establishes in one scene some important background as to who he is — or isn’t. And there’s Tate Donovan playing billionaire Steven Monroe — the target of the heist.
Into the mix comes the city of Los Angeles as another character to serve the narrative. Ultimately, writer/director Layton made a film where none of the characters have much of a moral compass, except perhaps the thief and the detective pursuing him, though even that is debatable. Because Layton loves his characters almost too much, he allows them much latitude to improve — except for the depraved Ormon.
As the film resolves itself, Layton gives the main characters a pass, maybe because there’s lots of room for a sequel. Or maybe it’s just because he likes what his actors have been able to turn his characters into.
MET Orchestra Perform American Musical Greats at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 19 February 2026 14:24
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Jennifer Taylor
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Wednesday, February 4th, I had the privilege to attend an excellent concert—presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the outstanding MET Orchestra under the peerless direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
The even began auspiciously with a sterling account of the undervalued Negro Folk Symphony of William L. Dawson, the ultimate revision of which was completed in 1952. About the piece, the composer told an interviewer that “the finest compliment that could be paid my symphony … is that it unmistakably is not the work of a white man. I want the audience to say: ‘Only a Negro could have written that.’” The initial movement, titled “The Bond of Africa,” begins with a solemn fanfare—this mood is discernible for longer, but as the movement becomes livelier in tempo, it is overcome by greater levity. In useful notes on the program, Harry Haskell explains:
“The Bond of Africa” opens with a portentous (and very Dvořákian) theme for solo horn that serves as a recurring leitmotif throughout the work; according to the composer, this four-note motto symbolizes the “missing link” that was “taken out of a human chain when the first African was taken from the shores of his native land and sent to slavery.” Contrast is provided by the solo oboe in the form of a perky melody from “Oh, My Little Soul Gwine Shine Like a Star,” the first of three spirituals that Dawson subtly weaves into his symphonic fabric.
The ensuing movement also has a serious ethos, but again lighter, joyful music comes to the fore, although it alternates with much heavier passages and builds to a powerful series of climaxes, and then finishes very quietly. The annotator comments:
The second movement, “Hope in the Night,” is the most explicitly programmatic of the three. In Dawson’s words, the three introductory gong strokes represent “the Trinity, who guides forever the destiny of man,” while the English horn “sings a melody that describes the characteristics, hopes, and longings of a folk held in darkness.” This theme in turn gives way to playful music depicting children who remain blissfully “unmindful of the heavy cadences of despair.”
The last movement is dynamic, even dance-like, with some suspenseful moments and, again, high-spirited interludes, concluding abruptly and triumphantly. Haskell adds:
The finale, based in part on the spiritual “O Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!,” is notable for its rhythmic vitality and colorful battery of percussion instruments, both elements of the revised score that Dawson created after making his first visit to West Africa in 1952.
The piece was very enthusiastically received by the audience.
The stunningly beautiful and marvelous mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard then entered the stage—she wore a fabulous, shimmering pink gown—to magnificently perform Samuel Barber’s exquisite Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24, from 1947, a setting of an autobiographical text in poetic prose by the eminent author James Agee. The composer interestingly said that the work evokes “the child’s feeling of loneliness, wonder, and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and sleep.” The first section is nostalgic, while the second is more animated but with a reflective close. The third part recaptures the sensibility of the first although the music intensifies, and in the last section again the lyricism of the opening returns, before it ends gently.
The second half of the evening was also memorable, starting with Leonard’s magical, movingly sung rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s sensational “Somewhere”—with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim—from the landmark 1957 musical, West Side Story. The program concluded with an accomplished version of the same composer’s fine score for the delightful 1944 ballet, Fancy Free—it was brilliantly choreographed by Jerome Robbins—which affords many of the pleasures of his other popular (and populist) music. Bernstein provided this synopsis of the work:
From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly young wartime America, 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamp post, a side street bar and New York skyscrapers pricked out with a crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode on the stage. They are on a 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they first meet one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.
The artists deservedly were deservedly, ardently applauded.
February '26 Digital Week II
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 18 February 2026 19:22
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Laura Benanti Serenades at 92nd Street Y
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 18 February 2026 14:27
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Laura Benanti, photo by Richard Termine
At the 92nd Street Y, on the night of Thursday, January 29th, I had the pleasure to a attend a splendid concert featuring the amazing and beautiful Broadway star Laura Benanti, along with the musicians Todd Almond, her longtime collaborator, on piano, Cat Popper on bass, and Eric Halvorson on drums.
Wearing a sparkling, silver-white gown, she began with a compressed and hilarious version of songs from the incomparable 1956 musical My Fair Lady, which has a score by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and is adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s sterling 1913 play, Pygmalion; these included “Wouldn't It Be Loverly?”, “Just You Wait,” “The Rain in Spain,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Show Me,” and “Without You.” (She was extraordinary as Eliza Doolittle—in the wonderful 2018 Lincoln Center Theater production—which she described as her dream role.)
She then sang Stephen Sondheim’s “I Remember” from his 1966 television musical Evening Primrose, which was adapted from a 1940 John Collier short story. This was followed by two songs written with Almond: “Mama’s a Liar” and “Good Men.” One of the highlights of the event was her haunting rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Carey” from the landmark 1971 album, Blue. (It was surprising that Benanti’s performances of more contemporary material were on the whole more memorable than her versions of popular song standards.)
She then sang the 1938 “Don't Worry 'bout Me” before the signature “Ice Cream” from the brilliant 1963 musical She Loves Me, with a score composed by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. (Benanti was marvelous in the terrific 2016 Broadway revival of the show, which was presented by The Roundabout Theatre Company.) “Recovering Ingénue,” which was next, was a delightful, original, comic song that preceded an equally amusing mashup of Dolly Parton and J. S. Bach performed by Almond.
Benanti then emerged as Melania Trump, an impression for which she has become famous, to conclude the program. Of course, enthusiastic applause elicited two excellent encores. First, there was “Edelweiss,” from the 1959 show The Sound of Music, with a score by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. (She debuted on Broadway in the role of Maria and more recently appeared as the Countess in a television adaptation of the musical.) Finally, she sang the popular “The Impossible Dream” from the 1965 musical—adapted from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote—Man of La Mancha, with a score composed by Mitch Leigh.
She will perform her own fabulous show, Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this summer.
