Review

Three things occurred to me while watching Caught Stealing. First, it's the best work director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) has done since 2010's Black Swan. Second, in addition to being set in the late 1990s, it embraces the indie filmmaking aesthetic of the era. Finally, it often feels like something the Coen Brothers might have made - "lesser" Coens, to be sure, but the familiar elements are there: darkly comic moments, sudden deaths, and bursts of violence. At 105 minutes, it's a satisfying excursion into the (mostly) non-touristy corners of New York - a vision far from Woody Allen's romanticized cityscape.

Releasing a movie over Labor Day weekend is a distributor's way of casting a "no confidence" vote. Given the storyline, that's somewhat understandable. Caught Stealing will probably play just as well as a streaming title as in a theater. It's strong on character development and suspense, but light on big-screen spectacle. Regardless of the release date, it was never destined to make a major splash. Still, it's disappointing to see the film relegated to what has long been considered the weakest weekend of the year for movie openings.

Caught Stealing is one of those crime movies where the protagonist gets pulled in as the result of a mistake and soon finds himself overwhelmed by a series of seemingly improbable events that transform him from a bystander to a figure at the center of a maelstrom of malfeasance and murder. Hitchcock loved these kinds of stories, although his characters were often more upstanding. A lot of what unfolds has a familiar feel but, although Aronofsky is content not to reinvent the wheel, he does a good job figuring out how to keep things rolling.

Austin Butler, as fully committed here as in any of his recent high-profile roles, plays ex-baseball phenom Hank Thompson, whose once-promising career crashed and burned along with the car he was driving under the influence. The accident - brought on by too much alcohol, a youthful sense of indestructibility, and a wayward cow in the road - shattered his leg and killed his best friend. Years later, Hank still hasn't recovered. He lives in a shabby New York City tenement, tends bar at a seedy dive, sleeps with his EMT girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), and calls his mother every day to talk about the Giants' Wild Card pursuit.

Things start to unravel when Hank's next-door neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith sporting a mohawk instead of a fez), asks him to cat-sit while he travels to London to visit his dying father. Unbeknownst to Hank, Russ is tangled up in a high-stakes swindle involving the Russian mob, crooked cops, and two seemingly harmless Hasidic gangsters - Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D'Onofrio) - who keep Shabbat as faithfully as they kill innocents to make a point. When Russ vanishes, everyone assumes Hank knows more than he does, and his ignorance doesn't spare him from a savage beating at the hands of two skinhead thugs (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin).

Charlie Huston's screenplay (based on his own novel) unfolds as a weird tale of redemption for a character who begins thoroughly unlikeable but gradually evolves as the story unfolds. Whether the Coen Brothers vibe is deliberate or not, it's unmistakable - especially in the figures of Lipa and Shmully, who feel as though they've wandered in from an unproduced Coens script. That aspect alone elevates Caught Stealing above the level of an ordinary seedy crime story. Baseball fans with a long memory and fondness for nostalgia will appreciate the attention to detail paid to the MLB standings, which track the last month of the season with authenticity. And the sex scene feels like a throwback to days when nudity wasn't shunned in R-rated films.

Aronofsky has assembled an eclectic roster of character actors to support Butler. They know their place - shining in the shadows without ever pulling focus from the lead. The standouts are Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio, followed closely by Matt Smith, who continues to choose roles that push his Doctor Who fame further into the rearview. Zoë Kravitz and Regina King are excellent but underused, each playing parts that might have benefitted from more substance. Meanwhile, veterans Carol Kane and Griffin Dunne turn up in small but recognizable roles, and a surprise cameo during a mid-credits scene makes it worth sticking around.

With Caught Stealing, there's a sense that Aronofsky may have finally rediscovered what once made him one of the most exciting young directors of the late 1990s and 2000s. His more recent output - the bizarre Noah, the incomprehensible Mother!, and the overrated The Whale - suggested a filmmaker groping for material that worked. Here, he seems to have found it. Caught Stealing gives him the right canvas, and he delivers with enough style to lift the film above the B-movie neo-noir roots of its screenplay.

© 2025 James Berardinelli

Synopsis

Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom who can’t play anymore, but everything else is going okay. He’s got a great girl (Zoë Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favorite team is making an underdog run at the pennant. When his punk-rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is he has no idea why. As Hank attempts to evade their ever-tightening grip, he’s got to use all his hustle to stay alive long enough to find out…

Playing At

• Regal Green Hills
  3815 Greenhills Village Drive, Nashville, TN
• Regal Hollywood - Nashville
  719 Thompson Lane, Nashville, TN
• Regal Opry Mills
  570 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville, TN
• AMC DINE-IN Thoroughbred 20
  633 Frazier Drive, Franklin, TN
• Regal Streets of Indian Lake
  300 Indian Lake Boulevard - Building T, Hendersonville, TN
• Regal Providence
  401 South Mt. Juliet Road - Suite 490, Mt. Juliet, TN
• AMC CLASSIC Spring Hill 12
  2068 Crossing Circle, Spring Hill, TN
• AMC CLASSIC Murfreesboro 16
  2626 Cason Square Boulevard, Murfreesboro, TN
• AMC Stones River 9
  1706 Old Fort Parkway, Murfreesboro, TN
• Regal Clarksville
  1810 Tiny Town Road, Clarksville, TN