ACTION: “Crime 101.” / “Apex.” / “Play Dirty.” / “King Ivory.” / “One Day as a Lion.” / “211.”

“Crime 101” (2026, Amazon Prime) crime thriller. An elite, disciplined thief adheres to a strict personal code. When he eyes a final "walk away" score, his path intersects with a disillusioned insurance broker passed over for a partner, and a relentless detective obsessed with catching the thief. 

       Winning cast: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, and Halle Berry. Add Nick Nolte, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Corey Hawkins, and Monica Barbaro. 

       This movie underperformed in the box-office, grossing only $72.8 million worldwide on a budget of $90 million. But this is not a bad or awful movie at all..

       Director Bart Layton, who wrote the screenplay (based on Don Winslow's 2020 novella) gave us an entertaining, cerebral action ride. 

       The L.A. noir vibe is cool, the action sequences aren't exaggerated but still kickass, and character development is served well. 🎥💻📽

“Apex” (2026, Netflix) survival action thriller. A stubbornly defiant rock climber and no-nonsense kayaker in the wild finds herself being hunted as she tries to survive. 

       Breathtaking Australian rockies, magnificent cliffs or ridges and Charlize Theron's defiant athleticism. Plus Taron Egerton makes a fine turn as the bad guy. These are the “attractions” of this thriller.

       But there's nothing here in the area of story development or character details. It's all grunts, gasps and shrieks. And people falling from outdoor heights. 🎥💻📽

“Play Dirty” (2025, Amazon Prime) heist action thriller, co-written and directed by Shane Black. A professional thief who, after being betrayed, assembles a crew for a high-stakes heist to steal a $1 billion treasure from a corrupt South American dictator and the New York mob. 

       Writer-director Shane Black is a gilded vet in high-action, but more as a writer. Remember the “Lethal Weapon” franchise? He wrote those. He did direct movies, so-so. Either you dug them or you didn't. But Mr Black is hard to ignore. So clicking “Play Dirty” was easy. 

       But then the first full action sequence, in the first 10 minutes, was laughably silly. What was that? “Jumanji,” I reckon? LOL! The ensuing bang-bang scenes seemed better but as tired derivatives of what we already saw. And the wild story? I don’t know. Wild. 

       Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield are fine though. Hyper and cool. Rosa Salazar “unsexied” her sexiness, too bad. Keegan-Michael Key isn't funny at all. Tony Shalhoub is Tony Shalhoub, bad guy or good guy. And Mark Cuban as himself was there, too, shot dead by Mr Wahlberg’s character. 🎥💻📽

“King Ivory” (2024, Hulu) action thriller. Presents an exposé on fentanyl trafficking and its effects on all walks of life, drawing on extensive research with law enforcement, gangs, inmates, migrants, and addicts. 

       I almost dismissed this narcos thriller, written and directed by John Swab, as “just another one of those.” But this one is unpretentiously stylish, blatantly honest, and dramatically engaging that you'd almost don't mind the stereotypical storyline and absence of insight that we haven't already seen, such as in Steven Soderbergh's “Traffic” or in the TV series “The Wire.”

       Still, this movie is not a waste of one's two hours. 🎥💻📽

“One Day as a Lion” (2023, Amazon Prime) action thriller comedy. A desperate, inexperienced hitman takes an assassination job to pay for his son’s legal defense. 

       Easy, accessible premise that we already saw so many times but this movie still glued me to finish it in one sitting. What this project has is character and heart, which could be a bit mawkish, but still endearing. And Marianne Rendon as Lola is a revelation, without trying too hard. 🎥💻📽

“211” (2018, Roku) crime action film. The plot follows a policeman and a teenager who are locked in a violent shootout with heavily armed bank robbers. The policeman is Nicolas Cage. Super Nic! Nouveau shamanic himself!

       This movie is supposedly (loosely) based on the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. "211" refers to the California Penal Code for robbery, although the film is set in Massachusetts, which does not use that number.

       Also known as the Battle of North Hollywood, the mayhem was a confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and police officers in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles on February 28, 1997. Both robbers were killed, twelve police officers and eight civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police.

       Heavy! The project is handled by (director) York Shackleton, a former professional snowboarder. (There's no snow in this film, BTW.)

       Apart from Nic, who must have taken home the majority of the budget, the rest of the cast are “never heard” individuals. But hey Mr Cage's son, Weston is here, as another cop. Doesn't matter.

       Gunbattle cliches, daytime soap dialogues, lifeless performances. But Nic is here so I didn't really care. I watched all 1 hour and 43 minutes of silliness. 🎥💻📽