If you were worried when you saw the trailer for Caught Stealing, and thought Darren Aronofsky had managed to make a fun movie, have no fear. The latest film from the Black Swan director was packaged as a good time throwback to the irreverent crime films of the 1990s. The film is actually a somber, at times harrowing, view of a man and a city who’s best years are behind him. The film stars Austin Butler, a man who came **this close** to winning an Oscar two years ago, and has since taken that exposure and has tried to find movie stardom his own way. Butler is a grimmer, more masculine alternative to Timothée Chalamet (a comparison literalized in their battle against one another at the end of Dune: Part Two), and seems primed to take his place as the Brad Pitt to Chalamet’s DiCaprio. Caught Stealing doesn’t accomplish much but it does further confirm Butler’s ability to lead a film.
This Aronofsky’s follow-up to The Whale, a film that won two Oscars but that has become so culturally noxious that it’s not even mentioned in the advertising for this latest movie. Even the elements that people enjoyed in The Whale (namely, Brendan Fraser – who, ironically, was the one who defeated Butler for Best actor in 2023) had little to do with Aronofsky, whose up-and-down career is defined by his willingness to delve into extremity. Pi and Requiem for a Dream proved he was a forceful, obstinate filmmaker who weaponized his lack of subtlety to great effect. The back-to-back success of The Wrestler and then Black Swan made him peers with fellow directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan. The three films between Swan and Caught Stealing include only one good movie, 2017’s Mother!, which of course was so controversial upon release it hardly felt like a win at the time. So I guess you can’t fault Sony for trying to sell us something atypical for one of his generation’s most severe name directors, but once you finish Caught Stealing there will be no doubt that the Aronofsky stamp is on it.
The script is written by Charlie Huston, who is adapting his own novel. Caught Stealing is the first of three books about the character Hank Thompson (Butler), a high school baseball phenom whose dreams went up in smoke when he crashed his car, wrecked his knee, and killed his friend Dale (a small cameo from D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai) all in one ghastly accident. The guilt plagues him with nightmares years later where he’s now a bartender in the Lower East Side in 1998. Hank’s days are dictated by his endless binge-drinking and barroom conversations with the bar’s owner Paul (a terrific Griffin Dunne) and the everyday regular Amtrak (Action Bronson). One bright spot is his relationship with Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz), a sexy NYC paramedic who wants to push her relationship with Hank past the physical and into something real. But is that something Hank is ready for?
The plot begins in earnest when Hank’s neighbor from across the hall, Russ (Matt Smith, in full cockney punk rock regalia), claims he needs to fly back to London ASAP and needs Hank to watch his cat, Bud. Hank accepts begrudgingly, but the next morning he’s visited by two Russian heavies (Nikita Kukushkin and Yuri Kolokolnikov) who don’t think twice before beating him to a pulp and leaving him in traction. Hank wakes up two days later in the hospital, where Yvonne explains that he’s lost his kidney and can no longer drink. An NYPD detective, Elise Roman (Regina King), questions Hank about the men who attacked him, and also about the whereabouts of Russ, who is apparently a central figure in a major drug deal gone wrong. With Russ nowhere to be found, Hank becomes the person everyone is looking for. Everyone includes the Russian strongmen, a Puerto Rican gangster (Benito “Bad Bunny” Martínez Ocasio), and a pair of Hassidic gangsters named Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio).
The plot compounds itself in a noirish fashion, but Butler’s Hank isn’t the usual noir protagonist. His emotional hangups are a recurring theme, and it allows Aronofsky to resort to one of his favorite pastimes: trauma. The movie’s opening thirty minutes suggests something more similar to the film’s trailer. Namely, a moderately violent, R-rated crime comedy with twists and turns and movie star at its center. As we get into the film’s second act, Huston’s script takes a turn so dark that the movie is never really able to bounce back from. And that’s by design. Caught Stealing is a film about failing to come to grips with your past and the major consequences it can wrought. Kravitz has a line early in the film saying so explicitly, the lack of subtlety another staple of an Aronofsky drama. But one can’t escape the feeling that this movie certainly wants to be more fun than it actually is, and falls short. The bodies pile up but there isn’t any absurdity to help the medicine go down. It’s dead serious about it’s life-and-death stakes.
Taking place in 90s NYC allows the movie to be romantic about a place that no longer exists. (A shot where Hank staggers in front of an old Kim’s Video storefront is made to satiate film nerds like myself. Bravo.) One of the better monologues in the film goes to King’s Det. Roman when she explains how much has changed, how gentrification has robbed New York of its former glory, the kind of speech that’s hat-and-hand with any NYC resident. Love of New York these days is a longing for what once was. There was always a time where the city was more vibrant, less commercial, less burdened by the expectations of the outside world. Whether or not this is actually true, Caught Stealing cleverly puts this observation in a New York from nearly thirty years ago, cementing the reality that the city we romanticize will forever be like Gatsby’s greenlight, borne ceaselessly into the past.
And so it goes that Caught Stealing is the first movie that I’ve watched since moving to New Jersey that really made me miss living in the city, even though it’s a version of the city where I never lived. Aronofsky extolls Hank’s cramped studio apartment, the busy city streets, the elements of danger weaved throughout everyday life. This is what the movie is most successful at and why I ended up enjoying it, despite obvious flaws. The entire supporting cast punches above its weight and lifts the film’s floor. Butler’s magnetism is on display, even if he’s not quite as dirtbag-y as the movie requires him to be. Physically, Butler rises to the occasion. On two occasions, he breaks into a full sprint that would make Tom Cruise proud. But this movie was never going to be anything like a Cruise vehicle; Aronofsky’s view is too sour, and he’s too sentimental about his characters’ pain. It’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to him making a commercial film. And I’ll say this, it is definitely better than The Whale.
nyc is about the past
Directed by Darren Aronofsky