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…
What We Thought:
Director Darren Aronofsky is known for psychological thrillers like Black Swan, Mother! and Requiem for a Dream. For his latest film, Caught Stealing, he went with an uninspired crime drama we’ve seen a thousand times before. I’m not the biggest fan of his so I was hoping him trying something different would have worked for me, but unfortunately it didn’t.
Despite not being a fan, the film on paper had enough there to make me want to see it. It’s set in my heyday, the 1990s. It has a stellar cast including Austin Butler, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Regina King, Matt Smith and Zoë Kravitz. It didn’t look like the rest of his filmography and seemed to have the grittiness of The Wrestler, his only movie I’d consider watching multiple times.
It’s about a former sport phenom (Austin Butler) who lost his promising career to an injury and now finds himself involved in the crime world. You can immediately think of The Town and a dozen other movies that sound similar. Instead of being like Ben Affleck’s character in that flick, Butler’s former baseball star accidentally finds himself involved with gangsters and drug dealers thanks to his neighbor played by Matt Smith who leaves him his cat when he flies back to England because of a medical issue with his father. Once Russians come knocking Butler’s Hank character finds himself in the hospital, being investigated by the cops and two Jewish gangsters are also watching him. On paper it sounds great and entertaining, but it feels like a straight-to-video crime caper that somehow has an A-list cast and director.
That’s the biggest issue, somehow this cast and director made a by-the-numbers flick. The acting is fine and Butler is very much leading man material that you can root for, but the story has been done so many times before. Even having it set in the 1990s is almost irrelevant. Other than the wardrobe (Austin Butler literally wears clothes I still rock to this day), 25 year old cell phones and the look of late 90s New York, it taking place in the 1990s is unnecessary. The 1990s is the greatest decade of all time and it taking place then adds nothing to story. If I wanted to watch a crime drama about the 1990s I’d go back and rewatch one from the 1990s that’s a thousand times better, Go.
Caught Stealing is a movie I’ll completely forget came out by the end of the year. It’s 2025’s version of The Bikeriders, a flick with so much potential that left me wondering how a fantastic cast and filmmaker made a generic movie. Butler does everything he can to make it interesting and he continues to impress me despite not loving the movies he’s in. Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio seemed to have fun making it along with Carol Kane, but it needed more chaos and over-the-top action. Crooked cops, Russian gangsters and punk rock has been done for decades now and I’ve seen a lot better.
Directed by:
Darren Aronofsky
Screenplay by:
Charlie Huston
Based on the book by:
Charlie Huston
Cast:
Austin Butler
Regina King
Zoë Kravitz
Matt Smith
Liev Schreiber
Vincent D’Onofrio
Benito Martínez Ocasio
Griffin Dunne
and Carol Kane
The Nerds Templar 