“Caught Stealing” is a turning point for director Darren Aronofsky. For viewers who have seen any of his previous films, they might be expecting his newest to be in line with his unnerving “Requiem for a Dream” released in 2000 or his more recent film, “The Whale,” released in 2022. While these psychological powerhouses continue to disturb long after the credits roll, “Caught Stealing” ambitions are elsewhere. This is not a flaw, but is in fact exactly what makes the film remarkable: it sticks in the audience’s mind because of how much of a damn good time it is, which is a total deviation from Aronofsky’s past work. He is clearly having fun with this movie, a word that would never be used to describe his past films.
In “Caught Stealing,” we follow washed-up baseball star Hank Thompson, played by Austin Butler, working as a barkeep in a distinctly grimy Lower East Side dive. Years after his baseball ambitions slipped away from him in a tragic fashion, all he wants to do is lay low. He cheers on the San Francisco Giants, slugs beers at all hours of the day and attempts to prove to his more coordinated girlfriend Yvonne, played by Zoë Kravitz, that he has his life under control. These are the few activities that keep him occupied, but it does not remain this simple for poor Hank throughout the film.
When he agrees to cat-sit for his mohawked neighbor Russ, portrayed by Matt Smith, his life becomes far more complicated than he needs it to be. Seemingly out of nowhere, he gets caught in the middle of a nightmarish mess that he has no part in making. As though accepting the responsibility for Russ’s cat set off a detonator, Hank finds himself suddenly pursued by gangsters left and right, sending him on a frantic journey as he tries to sort out the confusion.
Whether he has beaten by the two ferally aggressive bald Russians or accosted by the Hasidic brothers Lipa and Shmully Drucker—played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio—Hank begins to understand that his life, and the lives of the people he cares about, is on the line.
In the first third of the film, Hank has no idea what exactly it is that these aggressors are in search of. It is reminiscent of Josef K.’s character in Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” who is persecuted throughout the novel for a crime he has no knowledge of having committed. Because the viewer is just as mystified as Hank is, his dire circumstances quickly reach an unbearable tension.
When it is revealed that detective Elise Ramon (Regina King)—who initially appears to be Hank’s ally—is yet another figure hunting the same fateful MacGuffin that the web of criminals is after, all hell breaks loose. Full of ruthless violence tinged with black humor and captivatingly shot chase scenes, this film pays homage to directors like Tarantino or Scorsese’s looser movies like “After Hours,” released in 1985.
Aronofsky’s attention to detail in this film is a highlight. “Caught Stealing” is a love letter to New York City’s lost underground in the late 90s. The Lower East Side and Chinatown areas are reproduced with careful authenticity. From the graffiti present in what seems like every single shot to the backdrop of the 1998 playoff race between the New York Mets and the Giants, the film acts as a time capsule. The setting is a sleazy-type of cool that might make viewers want to go back in time, but some scenes are full of a squalor that we are happy to be on the other side of.
What works so well about this film is its balance. It is merciless at times, sure, but not to the point of becoming purely a spectacle. Butler plays the character of Hank with believable vulnerability. He is a protagonist with something to lose, and is someone the audience is inclined to root for. Plus, the violence is not played only for laughs. There is still a darkness present in some scenes that remind the viewer that Aronofsky has the capacity to unsettle. Just because this film does not lean into despair and derangement like many of his other movies do, it does not mean that he has lost his chops. Simply put, in “Caught Stealing,” Aronofsky shows the world that at the end of the day, a filmmaker’s job is to entertain and to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.