MPA Drops Ratings for Crime 101 and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
MPA stamps ratings on Crime 101 and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, priming an all-star crime thriller and Gore Verbinski’s surreal action-comedy for launch.
Two LA-set thrillers just cleared the same hurdle: the MPA ratings board. One is a slick freeway heist that sparked a studio dogfight. The other is Gore Verbinski getting weird in a diner with time travel and hostages. Both are headed our way with hard R stamps, and the details are worth a look.
Crime 101
This one set off a bidding war, and Amazon MGM Studios came out on top. The hook: Chris Hemsworth plays a ghost of a thief who has been pulling clean, high-dollar jobs up and down the 101. He is lining up one last mega-heist, and the plan shoves him into an uneasy partnership with Halle Berry as a burned-out insurance broker who has her own mess to deal with. Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo is the detective who refuses to blink, closing in as the clock runs out. As the money and pressure ramp up, the whole chase flips on its head and everyone is forced to live with the fallout of their choices. Sun-baked LA asphalt, high stakes, and the kind of cat-and-mouse where who is chasing who starts to blur.
MPA decision: an R for the grown-up stuff you would expect with this setup. The board specifically cites:
"language throughout, some violence and sexual material/nudity"
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Over in the wonderfully unhinged corner, Gore Verbinski is back with something that sounds like a midnight-movie special: a man claiming he is from the future locks down a classic Los Angeles diner and tries to recruit a wildly unlikely team to stop the apocalypse. That premise could go sideways ten different ways, which is exactly why it sounds fun. The script is by Matthew Robinson, who co-wrote The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais and Love and Monsters with Brian Duffield. Briarcliff Entertainment is releasing it.
MPA ruling here: also an R, and a gnarlier one. Their wording:
"pervasive language, violence, some grisly images and brief sexual content"
- Crime 101 cast: Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo, plus Barry Keoghan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Tate Donovan, Monica Barbaro, and Corey Hawkins.
- Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die cast: Sam Rockwell (JoJo Rabbit, Iron Man 2), Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen, The White Lotus), Michael Pena (Narcos: Mexico, Jack Ryan), Zazie Beetz (Joker, Deadpool 2), and Juno Temple (Ted Lasso, Venom: The Last Dance).
Quick takeaway: the latest MPA bulletin drops two R-rated, LA-centric rides on the calendar. One is sleek and starry with freeway heat; the other sounds like Verbinski breaking the glass case marked Absolutely Go For It. I am in for both.