Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo reunite for action thriller 'Crime 101'

Actors Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo reunite in the new heist thriller "Crime 101", which had its European gala premiere in London on Wednesday, the Marvel Cinematic Universe co-stars' fifth collaboration.

Hemsworth plays Mike Davis, a high-end thief who has managed to evade capture while carrying out a string of heists along the 101 Freeway. Spotting a pattern, detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) starts closing in on Davis just as he teams up with disillusioned insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) for a major robbery, upending the lives of all three.

"I signed on to the film first. I read the script and thought of Mark, texted Mark, and he said, 'this is one of the greatest things I've read', Hemsworth said in London. "To get back together with him, he's such a wonderful person...it was a dream."

"The film sees Davis carefully selecting his targets, acting fast and without violence. It shows off both his skill set and his emotional side, as well as the psychological warfare between the characters," Hemsworth said. "It's a very different character than I'd played before. It was about sort of shedding a lot of the default mechanisms or tools I had applied through, especially action films, and films where there was a lot of strength and posturing and showmanship."

Berry, 59, found the struggles of the high-performing Sharon, who keeps being passed over for a promotion at work, relatable. "This is a woman that's very close to me, being a woman of a certain age and feeling like at this certain age the world is trying to diminish me in some way or tell me that my time is up and that things are over," Berry said. "I just refuse to accept that. It's not over. I'm just getting started," she added.

Also starring Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, and Nick Nolte, Crime 101 is written and directed by Bart Layton and based on the 2020 novella of the same name by Don Winslow. It begins its global theatrical rollout on February 12.