Barry Keoghan has always had that raw, unpredictable energy that makes you lean forward in your seat, and in CRIME 101, the Dublin actor unleashes it with the kind of ferocity that threatens to steal the entire film from under Chris Hemsworth’s polished nose. Playing Ormon, a rogue thief with something to prove and nothing to lose, Keoghan brings the same feral intensity that made him unforgettable in LOVE/HATE, transplanting that Dublin edge straight into the sun-bleached sprawl of Los Angeles where it burns twice as bright and twice as dangerous. Director Bart Layton, who clearly recognized what Keoghan was capable of when he cast him in AMERICAN ANIMALS, has given the actor room to breathe and bite, and bite he does, sinking his teeth into a role that could have been a throwaway wildcard but instead becomes the film’s beating, anarchic heart.

Hemsworth’s jewel thief is all smooth surfaces and careful calculation, a career criminal executing his biggest score alongside Halle Berry’s insurance broker, but it’s Keoghan’s Ormon who threatens to blow the whole operation apart, not through incompetence but through sheer, rabid unpredictability. He bounces between moments of genuine criminal skill and flashes of pure psychopathy, a live wire that could spark brilliance or catastrophe at any second, and that tension is what makes CRIME 101 crackle with the kind of energy that elevates it beyond standard heist fare.

Like all the best heist films, this one understands that the pleasure isn’t just in watching the plan unfold but in feeling the constant threat that everything could collapse, and Keoghan embodies that threat entirely, a desperate young man hungry to prove he belongs in a world of professionals even as his instability suggests he might destroy it from within. Layton gives audiences the satisfaction of being in on the robbery, that delicious voyeuristic thrill of watching the pieces come together, but he’s smart enough to let Keoghan be the chaos agent who reminds us that no plan survives contact with real human desperation, and the result is a performance that doesn’t just support the film but hijacks it in the best possible way, turning what could have been a sleek, forgettable thriller into something with genuine teeth and unpredictable bite.