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Bart Layton is the British film-maker who previously gave us American Animals, a true-crime docudrama about the theft of rare books. That film’s title would also have applied perfectly well to this new one, an LA crime thriller adapted from a novella by Don Winslow. It is a little in the style of Michael Mann, though without the military hardware and the overhead shots of SUVs moving in swift convoy that would make it a full Mann homage.
Layton does without the distinctive indirect mannerisms and meta-commentaries of his earlier movies, but he applies his pedal to the metal for what is an enjoyable and very stylish high-stakes armed robbery film about a thief who is highly controlled, super-cool, super-groomed, and naturally looking for the “walkaway money” of the time-honoured one last job.
This is Mike (played by Chris Hemsworth), who with his sleek black performance cars and Glock handguns, commits jewel robberies with the laudably nonviolent precision of a ballet-dancing brain surgeon. He is controlled by a leathery old tough guy called Money (Nick Nolte), who once upon a time mentored Mike out of foster care and into crime. But Mike’s hits are all along California’s Route 101, a pattern spotted by LAPD’s single honest cop, detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), as dishevelled and smart as Columbo.
When things go horribly wrong, Mike develops qualms about the whole business, and Money looks like replacing him with Ormon (Barry Keoghan): an undisciplined, trigger-happy youngster who rides a flashy, attention-attracting motorbike – uncool – and has dyed blond hair (also uncool). Everything comes to a crisis point when Mike induces troubled insurance agent Sharon (Halle Berry) to give him inside info for a hugely lucrative job that he figures he can set up on his own. Meanwhile, he can’t bring himself to tell his girlfriend Maya (Monica Barbaro) what he does for a living.
This is a movie that revs the engine entertainingly and loudly, though it is less convincing when it claims the moral high ground of social comment by perfunctorily showing us LA’s homeless. At one stage, Ruffalo’s detective rides on a city bus crowded with the city’s low-net-worth individuals. (What, no Uber?) But overall, it is a highly watchable spectacle, leaving a sizzling streak of rubber on the tarmac.
