Josh Reviews Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing is set in New York City in 1998; Hank (Austin Butler) is living a happy life as a jovial, somewhat unreliable, slightly alcoholic bartender.  He’s in an on-the-edge-of-becoming-serious relationship with a paramedic named Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz).  But Hank’s life gets turned upside down after his next door neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) leaves town (heading back home to the U.K. after his father has a heart attack), and it turns out all sorts of violent gangsters and hoodlums are looking for Russ.  With Russ nowhere to be found, they turn their eyes (and ire) on Hank, who had agreed (reluctantly!) to house-sit Russ’ cat.  Chaos and violence soon ensues.

Caught Stealing was written by Charlie Huston, adapting his own novel of the same name.  (Mr. Huston has written a number of novels — which I have not read — and a number of great comic books — which I have, such as his 2006 reboot of Moon Knight.  He was also the writer and producer on the TV adaptation of Powers, a show that I wish I’d liked more, because I adore the original comic book series by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming.)  The movie was directed by Darren Aronofsky, who is certainly a brilliant, visionary filmmaker, though I’ve found his films to be a bit hit and miss for me.  But when he hits (as he did with Black Swan… and I’m a defender of his 2014 Noah film), he hits big.

Caught Stealing is a terrific movie.  It’s got a great cast, and I really liked the tone that was serious and dangerous but also a little silly, with plenty of moments of character-based comedy amongst the violence.  It reminded me of the best Coen Brothers movies (films like Blood Simple or Fargo).

My only real objection to the movie is a mid-movie narrative choice that I hated, and that threw me out of the movie.  They chose to kill off a supporting character, but that was too dark a turn in my opinion, and made it hard for me to keep having fun watching the movie.  I really wish they hadn’t made that choice.  If they hadn’t done that, I really think this would have been a spectacular film.  As it is, it’s very good.

The cast is exceptional.  Austin Butler does a terrific job in the lead role as Hank.  Mr. Butler first came to my attention with his tremendous performance as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, and he was great in Dune Part Two.  He’s dynamite here as Hank; he’s convincing both as a dumb kid who just likes to get drunk and laze about, and also as (eventually) a movie action hero who can take a beating and still manage to outwit and survive a bunch of professional killers.  Zoë Kravitz (The Batman, The Studio) is a wonderful partner & foil for Mr. Butler’s Hank as Yvonne.  Ms. Kravitz’s charisma shines through the screen.  We can immediately understand why Hank is smitten by her.  I love that Yvonne seems to be smarter and more put together than Hank is, at every turn.  I wish the movie gave her even more to do in the story.  Regina King (Watchmen, The Leftovers) is magnetic as Detective Roman, who gets involved in the situation after Hank is first assaulted by two Russian mobsters.  Matt Smith (Doctor Who, Terminator Genisys, Last Night in Soho, House of the Dragon) is a hoot as Russ, who, when he re-enters the movie in the second half, turns out to be connected to just as much trouble as we’d guessed.

Bad Bunny (Benito Martínez Ocasio) is a delight as Colorado, a smooth-talking, pistol-wielding Puerto Rican gangster.  Liev Schreiber (Spotlight, Don’t Look Up, Asteroid City) and Vincent D’Onofrio (The Kingpin, most recently seen in Daredevil: Born Again) are very funny as two murderous Hassidic Jews — I love the pairing of Mr. Schreiber and Mr. D’Onofrio!! — and the great Carol Kane (who I’ve loved in so many films and TV shows, from Annie Hall to Scrooged to The Princess Bride; she starred in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and these days she’s appearing in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) makes the most out of her scenes as their bubbe (grandmother).  There’s been a lot of talk in my circles about whether showing two Hassidic Jews as violent murderers is problematic in this age of rising Anti-Semitism.  It’s probably not helpful, but I also do believe that Jewish people — like people of ALL races, religions and ethnicities — should be able to be depicted as all types of characters, both heroic and as villains — as long as one is not dipping into hurtful stereotypes.  While jokes about how their bubbe won’t let them leave without a full meal and some chicken soup (even for the young goy) are somewhat cliche, I thought that scene was funny (mostly because how well Ms. Kane, along with Mr. Butler, Mr. Schreiber, and Mr. D’Onofrio played the moment).  And while at this moment in the world I’d rather see Jewish characters depicted more honorably, I don’t take much issue with what we got here in this film.  It helps that I thought these characters were funny and even a little endearing, despite their heinous actions.  (Here too I am reminded of how many awful characters in Coen Brothers movies who I still somehow loved.)

The film has fun with its 1998 setting.  Wisely there isn’t too much shoving our faces in the period setting.  But I loved the way they so carefully recreated the look of the Lower East Side, and several nearby New York neighborhoods, from the nineties.  (My heart sang to see Shea Stadium in the movie!!)  The ’90s setting is most important for the story because people don’t all carry cell-phones.  Ahhh, what a nostalgic bygone era!

It’s a pleasure seeing a crime caper movie like this, made for adults.  It’s rare to see mid-budget movies like this, in this day and age.  (The internet tells me the budget was around $40 million.)  The film looks great (and I suspect that budget helped assemble this great cast).  But this isn’t a BIG HUGE movie.  It’s a relatively small-scale story.  Bravo to Mr. Aronofsky and his team for all of this!!

As I’d written at the top, my one complaint is about that mid-movie plot choice.  Check out here if you don’t want to be SPOILED.

I mean it!  SPOILERS ahead.

Still here?

OK, I really hated that they chose to kill off Yvonne in the middle of the movie.  And off-camera, no less!  It felt so disrespectful to me, to treat that character so shabbily.  Here in 2025 I thought we’d moved beyond “fridging” female characters as a way to instigate a male character’s story.  Also, I liked Yvonne so much that my shock and upset at her brutal murder really soured me on the story for a while, and made it much harder for me to keep enjoying the fun and the laughs that were such a (great) element of this movie.  I think in a movie like this it was a mistake to be so brutal in killing off an innocent character; for me, it broke the balance of the movie’s tone.  If they felt they needed to take Yvonne out of the picture so that Hank would be forced to be all on his own, I’d have preferred if they had done that without killing her.  (Maybe put her in the hospital?)  But even that might not have been the best choice; I really missed Yvonne in the movie’s second half!  I’d have loved to have seen a version of this movie when it was Hank & Yvonne together against the world in the second half, rather than just Hank.  (I know when reviewing a movie I have to judge the movie on what it is, not what I wished it was.)

I did still enjoy the second half of the movie, but I think without that choice to have killed off Yvonne, I’d be even more evangelical about this movie.  I think it’d have been great, instead of just very good.

But it is still very good!  I’m glad to have seen it, and it’s a movie I look forward to seeing again!