Monica Barbaro | Bouquets & Brickbats

14/03/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

There’s something delightfully old-fashioned about Crime 101, a sense of quality that harks back to the classic cop thrillers of the 70s and 80s. Directed and written by Bart Layton and based on a novella by Don Winslow, the film moves smoothly through its initial set-up to a pulse-pounding conclusion, prowling confidently along like the proverbial tiger on vaseline. Pretty much all of its characters are beautifully drawn and have very good reasons to be where they are.

A highly-disciplined jewel thief has arrived in LA. All of the million-dollar hits to date have occurred at some point along Route101, a fact that has not escaped the attention of LAPD detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo). But his attempts to get this across to his fellow cops seems destined to get him nowhere. They are much more interested in ticking boxes and ensuring they’re left looking good, even if that means bending the rules.

We know from the get-go who Lou is looking for. It’s Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), a highly-principled villain, who leaves nothing to chance. So, when he doesn’t like the set up for his next job in Santa Barbara, he tells his fence, Money (Nick Nolte), that he’s going to give this one a swerve. Money, more interested in making big bucks, hires motorbiking thug Ormon (Barry Keoghan) to handle the heist instead. Orman is an undisciplined agent of chaos and his messy attack on a jewellery store threatens to completely derail everything.

Meanwhile, insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) is getting sick and tired of her bosses passing her over for a long-promised partnership. She is beginning to realise that something is going to have to change. And then Mike is quite literally run into by a stranger called Maya (Monica Barbaro) and he too begins to ask himself if it might be time to get out of the risky career he’s currently embroiled in…

If the story sounds complicated on paper, have no fears on that score. The narrative is beautifully handled and I’m never in any doubt about the many twists and turns the story takes. There’s much to admire along the way, not least Erik Wilson’s stunning cinematography, which depicts LA in all of its neon-drenched glory. Hemsworth, too often fobbed off with roles that don’t actually require him to do much more than stand around and look handsome, actually gets to flex his acting skills here. There are some beautifully-handled car chase sequences (when Lou asks Mike which is his favourite Steve McQueen movie, it’s no surprise that he chooses Bullitt) and I love the scene where Sharon tells her boss exactly what she thinks of him.

On the nitpick side, Nolte’s dialogue is hard to follow, Jennifer Jason Leigh is wasted in a tiny cameo role – and quite why Keoghan keeps playing characters that would be better suited to a teenage actor is quite beyond me.

But these are minor niggles. I am swept up in the story until we get to a slickly-orchestrated final heist where the suspense builds to a thrilling climax. In a story this earthy, it’s rare to find a redemptive conclusion, but somehow Crime 101 manages to achieve one. I am late getting to this, but I’m really glad I’ve managed to catch it on the big screen before it moves to streaming.

4. 8 stars

Philip Caveney

17/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Writer/director James Mangold has been down the music biopic route before with 2005’s Walk The Line (featuring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash), but the news that he was planning a film about Bob Dylan felt like a decidedly tall order. After all, Robert Zimmerman is the proverbial mystery wrapped up in an enigma, a man who has unabashedly invented (and reinvented) the details of his own story from the very start of his career. It’s to Mangold’s credit then, that A Complete Unknown is such a triumph, eschewing the idea of a ‘whole life’ depiction and choosing instead to focus on five turbulent years from the musician’s life.

it’s 1961 and a twenty-year-old Dylan hitchhikes from his home in Duluth, Minnesota to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey, where folk legend Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairie) is slowly succumbing to the ravages of Huntingdon’s Disease. Guthrie is Dylan’s hero and he has come here to sing to him, as song he’s written all about the man. Present at the impromptu performance is Guthrie’s friend and fellow folk stalwart, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). He’s impressed both by the song and the performer’s confidence, so he takes Dylan under his wing and starts introducing him to the flourishing folk scene in the coffee houses of New York City.

It isn’t long before his regular appearances start to gain him a reputation. At one concert he meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning, a thinly disguised version of Dylan’s real life muse, the late Suze Rotolo), and the two of them become lovers and constant companions. He also meets folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), already something of a star on the folk circuit. Baez covers some of Dylan’s songs and helps to bring his work to a wider audience, and inevitably, a romantic entanglement ensues between them.

And then, Dylan begins to tire of the strictures of the folk scene and finds himself increasingly drawn to the trappings of rock music – the fashions, the poses, the volume. But he is to discover that folk puritans are opposed to sullying ‘their’ music with electric guitars and keyboards. It becomes clear that the transition won’t be an easy one to make…

These days, I am by no means a Bob Dylan fan, but I did follow him during the mid sixties and have always held a soft spot for Highway 61 Revisited – which, coincidentally, is the album around which this film reaches its climax. In the lead role Timothée Chalamet is quite simply astonishing, offering a performance that goes beyond the realms of mere impersonation. He actually performs all the songs and plays guitar on them. (A post screening Q & A tells me that he didn’t play the instrument before this film, but had the opportunity to work on his character for five years and figured he might as well go all-in). Co-star Barbaro had barely sung a note before she landed the role of Joan Baez, but she somehow nails the woman’s unique vocal style effortlessly.

And then of course, there are the songs, each one indelibly memorable and delivered with enhanced power at this IMAX screening, so that the film’s two hour plus running time seems to positively flash by. Dylan, as portrayed by Chalamet, is a whole contradiction of characters, by turns vulnerable, scheming, hard bitten and amorous, sneering, vindictive, reckless and determined. Of course, Chalamet has been nominated for an Oscar and, should he be successful, then it will be well-earned.

A Complete Unknown is a remarkable achievement, a film that captures the era in which it’s set with absolute veracity and which chooses to focus on one of the most important moments in music history. It’s fascinating to watch it unfold. (Okay, so a few small details have been tweaked – that infamous cry of ‘Judas!’ occurred at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, not the Newport Folk Festival, but it matters not one jot.) This is a movie to enjoy on the big screen with the best sound system available. After the recent financial failure of the brilliant Better Man, I’m reluctant to speculate on what this film might achieve at the box office, but for my money, it ticks all the boxes.

It’s a musical feast. Dig in.

5 stars

Philip Caveney