While Las Vegas, Nev., and Branson, Mo., have each co-opted the title in recent years, Los Angeles was touted as the Entertainment Capital of the World for decades. L.A.’s reputation as the ultimate show-business nexus may lately be in question, but the city has retained its status as a scenic and versatile setting for a wide range of movies and television shows, even beyond its obvious or necessary use when it comes to Hollywood-oriented narratives. There’s a long tradition of L.A. crime dramas and more than a few comedies about the misfits who are drawn to the city, whether by the promise of stardom or the possibility of finding like-minded souls. As such, two new movies and one current TV miniseries make smart and effective use of the Los Angeles backdrop.
‘Crime 101’
In the cops-and-crooks thriller Crime 101, successful and meticulous jewel thief Davis — played by Chris Hemsworth in a taciturn, assured turn — is careful to avoid committing violence during his heists, which seem to parallel U.S. Route 101 in Southern California. He’s growing weary of his illicit profession, simultaneously growing closer to a woman he’s recently met, and he begins to question his life choices. After considering the variables, Davis decides that his next potential caper is too dangerous and won’t risk doing it. The man who provides his targets decides to cut him off and instead hires the loose cannon Ormon to do the job: pillage a jewelry store. Meanwhile, Los Angeles police detective Lou (Mark Ruffalo) is awaiting Davis’s next move, having traced the series of thefts along the 101. As Lou closes in, Davis decides to go for a final big score and embroils embittered insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) in a plan to rob a deluxe wedding at a plush Beverly Hills hotel. Of course, this puts everyone involved on a collision course.
Crime 101, adapted from Don Winslow’s novella and directed by Bart Layton, navigates familiar turf in workmanlike fashion. It’s nothing particularly new and doesn’t possess the depth of Michael Mann’s Heat or the scope and period flair of L.A. Confidential and Chinatown. Still, it’s the sort of movie that’s easy to ride with a great cast. Leaping into a part that allows him to embrace his simmering, sinister side, Barry Keoghan is the heedless miscreant who replaces Davis for the crucial jewelry-store affair. Nick Nolte is the mastermind who sends the thieves on their missions; Monica Barbaro plays Davis’s new and somewhat bewildered girlfriend, Maya; Corey Hawkins is Lou’s skeptical fellow detective; Tate Donovan makes for an ideally obnoxious rich guy; and Jennifer Jason-Leigh has a taut cameo as Lou’s estranged wife. They are all fully in the swing of it, as the sun beats down on the freeways, upscale streets, and rough alleys of L.A. If you enjoy the genre, Crime 101 will provide more than enough gritty pleasures to make for a diverting trip.
Crime 101 is currently in theaters.
‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’
Justified or not, Los Angeles (much like San Francisco) has a certain notoriety as a magnet for weirdoes and kooks. That makes it the perfect location for the freaky-deaky science-fiction comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, from director Gore Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson.
How L.A. is the movie? It actually starts off at Norms, the venerable 24-hour diner on La Cienega Boulevard, not too far from Beverly Hills. On a rainy night, what appears to be a loony street person bedecked in bits of discarded tech — wires, control panels, and so on — bursts into the crowded diner with a bomb trigger in hand and says he’s a time traveler who will blow the place up unless a group of patrons will join him as he tries to save the world from a technological danger. (Foreshadowing the peril, virtually everyone in Norms is staring at their cell phones.) The seemingly unhinged interloper also says he’s done this many times before, and to prove it, he identifies a number of the customers by name and adds a little biographical tidbit here and there.
It’s just the start of a rousing, funny, and thoughtful action movie that takes its motley crew out of Norms and into the urban landscape on a quest that may lead to salvation or doom. Vital to making it work as well as it does, Sam Rockwell plays the manic time traveler like quicksilver in human form, easily pivoting from alarm to sarcasm to sadness. The chrononaut’s recruits, all compelling in their individual ways, include Michael Peña and Zazie Beets as a pair of high-school teachers with relationship issues; Juno Temple as a mourning single mom whose son was killed in a school shooting; and Haley Lu Richardson as a depressed children’s entertainer still garbed as a princess from a birthday party earlier in the evening. As these characters and others realize the importance of their mission, they grudgingly follow the man from the future in his latest attempt to change fate. Verbinski has directed pop-culture touchstones, such as three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and The Ring. For all of its slam-bang fireworks and humorous moments, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a more cerebral, serious affair than those other Verbinski projects — and as much if not more fun.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is currently in theaters.
‘Wonder Man’
Yes, Wonder Man — an eight-episode miniseries on Disney+ — is connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Show creator Destin Daniel Cretton is, in fact, the director of the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day and director-screenwriter of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. But he also wrote and directed Short Term 12, an intimate, decidedly down-to-earth drama about the travails of a couple working at a group home for troubled teenagers. Therefore, it isn’t too surprising to discover that Wonder Man is an interpersonal dramedy that reinvents a second-tier Marvel Comics superhero and soars on the strength of its mismatched buddy-film-style pairing of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley as struggling actors doing the Hollywood shuffle. It’s more about the pursuit of success in the film and TV industry — and how near to impossible it is to achieve — than any cosmic battle between good and evil, which is a refreshing change for any comic book-derived property.
Abdul-Mateen II’s Simon Williams secretly has extra-normal powers, and Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery is spying on Williams at the behest of a U.S. government agency to uncover proof of those powers. Still, the series focuses on Williams as he endures a string of auditions for the prized lead role in a remake of an in-universe superhero film and on the symbiotic bond that develops between him and ex-con Slattery, a classically trained has-been thespian. Williams is prone to self-sabotage, used to rejection, and forced to hide his special gifts; Slattery is a slave to his vices and a victim of his terrible choices. Their rapport echoes that of the tormented characters Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy, a connection emphasized by Williams and Slattery meeting for the first time at a revival showing of that very movie. To bring Wonder Man more firmly into the Hollywood milieu, there are plot-advancing guest appearances by veteran actors Joe Pantoliano and Josh Gad playing fictionalized versions of themselves with laugh-out-loud results. Add that to the intricately shaded performances by Abdul-Mateen II and especially Kingsley. In toto, Wonder Man is a wonder.
All episodes of Wonder Man are available for streaming on Disney+.