The film features a scene-stealing supporting turn from the Irish actor.

Based on a novella by acclaimed author Don Winslow (Savages), the movie is set in Los Angeles and revolves around Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth, Bad Times at the El Royale), an elusive jewel thief whose string of non-violent heists along the 101 freeway has mystified police.

Lou (Spotlight's Mark Ruffalo, at his most delightfully Peter Falk), a dedicated cop, is the only one in his force who believes the robberies are all the work of one man.

As the detective closes in on Mike, the gentleman thief plans one final score, so that he can perhaps ride off into the sunset with his new love (a radiant Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown).

When a disillusioned insurance broker (X-Men's Halle Berry, reminding viewers what a star she is) and a younger rival robber (Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin) become entangled in Mike's plot, the stakes grow even higher.

Crime 101 has earned a lot of comparisons to Heat in the run-up to release (including by us!), as it is set in LA and centres around two solitary figures - a cop and a thief, each with their own code - in a cat-and-mouse game.

Crime 101 Trailer

Yet, while there are surface-level connections between the two heist flicks, what they are seeking to accomplish with their stories is actually very different.

In Heat, writer-director Michael Mann strips away a lot of the artifice one associates with the crime sub-genre, depicting the lives of its central cop and criminal in a way that feels authentic.

At the same time, Mann draws links between the two characters, who both feel bound to systems at the expense of their personal happiness. There is a strange tragedy to Heat, a sense that if its lead characters weren't a detective and a professional thief, they may have even been friends.

Crime 101 isn't trying to subvert genre conventions or elevate them to new heights.

Sure, it borrows some tricks from the Mann playbook - several extended sequences with a focus on process and procedure, a handful of action set-pieces that are thrilling not because they are full of explosions, but because they feel just that slightly more realistic.

Yet, Crime 101, which is written and directed by Bart Layton (who already made a great heist movie starring Barry Keoghan; American Animals), is a less weighty and more playful thriller.

It feels like a film made by someone who has seen a lot of heist flicks (The Thomas Crown Affair is even name-checked in dialogue) and is delighting in taking elements from classics of the sub-genre and remixing them or adding new complications to them.

Unlike Heat, which focuses on fascinating but deeply flawed men, Hemsworth's thief and Ruffalo's cop in Crime 101 are both extremely likeable. In fact, Layton goes to great lengths to make the arrogant and decadent wealthy whom Mike robs, and the institutions that support them (insurance companies, the police), the true villains.

In setting his thriller in a recognisable contemporary LA world of haves and have-nots, Layton identifies why so many are obsessed with the notion of the gentleman thief. If you could redistribute the wealth without really hurting anyone, wouldn't you?

That said, not all robbers are gentlemanly, as evidenced by Barry Keoghan's Ormon, a biker rival to Hemsworth's Mike who prefers brute force to meticulous planning.

While it isn't the deepest role on paper, Keoghan imbues the part with a live-wire, feral energy, as well as almost boyish patheticness, and almost walks away with the picture in the process.

Crime 101 is in cinemas now.