“Caught Stealing” is one of those twisty crime thrillers where it seems like the filmmakers cast as many interesting names as they could and then wrote the movie around using them all. For example, at no point did I feel it was necessary for the film to feature Matt Smith as a character with a 60’s U.K. punk rock aesthetic in this film set in New York in 1998 (itself an inexplicable choice). All the film needed was a neighbor character who’s mixed up with some bad people. But the movie got Smith for the role, and somebody, possibly Smith himself, wanted to see the character played with the crazy getup. The result is a character that is a scene-stealer to be sure, but is the story really helped by all his quirkiness? I don’t think so. If anything, he’s a distraction from the main character, whose journey is supposed to be the focus. Though maybe it’s for the best, because I wasn’t digging the main character and was welcoming all distractions.
Austin Butler stars as Hank Thompson, a disgraced former baseball prodigy barely scraping by as a bartender, and an alcoholic one at that. The one good thing in his life is his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). She’s almost ready to start taking the relationship more seriously, which he wants, but first she needs him to start taking himself more seriously, which he isn’t ready to do. Subconsciously, he’d rather just spend all his time moping around and thinking about how his life would have been better if he hadn’t crashed his car while drunk, thus ending his baseball career.
Hank’s neighbor Russ (the aforementioned Smith character) hurriedly puts him in charge of his cat Buddy while he leaves town for a few days. Hank’s proximity to the shady Russ gets him into trouble with some Russian gangsters (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin), which also leads to trouble with a Puerto Rican gangster (Benito Martínez Ocasio aka rapper Bad Bunny), and eventually a pair of really dangerous Hasidic gangsters (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio). Hank tries with increasing desperation to stay out of trouble with all five gangsters, and at least he can expect some help from hardboiled detective Elise Roman (Regina King). But running from his problems hasn’t worked out for Hank in the past, is it a good idea here, even though for once his predicament isn’t his fault?
There’s a good idea for a character arc here with Hank needing to learn to take responsibility for mistakes he’s made in both the recent and distant past. But it was just too hard for me to respect the character after his incredibly stupid decision to go on an alcohol bender the night after losing a kidney, thanks to the Russians. I can understand straying from doctors’ orders to a degree, I’m not exactly an angel myself in that department, and I know every movie hero isn’t going to be strictly by-the-book. But for the character to make a decision that stupid that quickly, sorry, I was done rooting for him. Which was a shame, because the movie is without the delightful Kravitz for a long stretch, leaving the film without a likeable protagonist.
I’m giving “Caught Stealing” the mildest of recommendations, because the jokes are just funny enough, the action and suspense just exciting enough, and the overachieving cast just interesting enough for me to praise among an near-equal list of complaints. It’s hard to believe a movie this middling came from usually-ambitious director Darren Aronofsky. Since this movie likes its baseball metaphors, I’ll say that I associate Aronofsky with spectacular hits (“Requiem for a Dream,” “The Wrestler,” “Black Swan”) and the occasional spectacular strikeout (“Noah”), but “Caught Stealing” is an unimpressive single – avoiding an “out,” but just barely.
Grade: B-
“Caught Stealing” is rated R for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use. Its running time is 107 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Last Update: Sep 01, 2025 12:06 pm CDT
