‘Caught Stealing’: Austin Butler Rocks In Darren Aronofsky’s Crime Thriller

Discarding his usual penchant for psychological filmmaking, Caught Stealing is a surprisingly down-the-middle movie for director Darren Aronofsky. It’s not about the horror of knowing oneself like in Black Swan, or even in the same vein as the overserious and frankly cruel character study The Whale. No, this is a black comedy crime movie about a regular guy getting caught up in New York’s criminal underworld. And I’ll admit, it kinda rocks.

The ever-charming Austin Butler plays Hank Thompson in Caught Stealing, an affable bartender working in 90s NYC. He’s got a nice thing going with paramedic Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz, who is sadly underutilised) and suppresses his trauma – like any good man in the 90s – until his punkrocker neighbour Russ (Matt Smith) asks Hank to look after his cat. Because of this, Hank has an encounter with Russian gangsters looking for Russ, and he’s thrown in the deep end of the criminal underworld with concrete shoes on.

Caught Stealing works in large part because of Butler, who’s continued to cement himself as a bonafide movie star since his Oscar nomination for Elvis. But unlike his other roles, this film really allows Butler to occupy the screen and deliver his unique brand of dark, brooding charm across two hours in a sincerely great performance.

The slow unraveling of Hank’s world and morals are reminiscent of Aronofsky’s prior films, but it’s certainly more ‘fantastical’ and fun, if still quite grounded. Caught Stealing makes crime feel certifiably cruel and violent, especially as Hank finds himself entangled in this world further and further, while still remaining an entertaining affair overall.

Caught Stealing feels like a deliberate career sidestep

Charlie Huston’s script (which is based on his novel of the same name) is also pretty solid. Though there are a few stretches of the film that drag a bit, it mostly succeeds at zipping through its 90s New York setting with a real sense of energy and danger while chipping away at Hank’s unfairly chiseled facade.

I do perhaps wish the film looked a little bit more 90s though, especially in its fairly neutral lighting that does little to accentuate the drama happening on screen. There are plenty of other signifiers of the period like needle drops, phones and even the occasional shot of the Twin Towers, but I found myself a little disappointed with the film’s aesthetic.

Where the film doesn’t disappoint is in its wider cast, which is peppered with an array of colorful characters. Regina King is great as the mysterious Detective Ronan, as is Matt Smith sporting one of the craziest movie mohawks I’ve ever seen as Russ. Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio are delightful as Hebrew gangsters Lipa and Shmully, and bad-day-in-New-York movie royalty Griffin Dunne makes a lot of a little as Hank’s boss Paul.

It all comes together to make Caught Stealing feel identifiably different from Aronofsky’s other recent works, burying the lead on its heftier psychological themes rather than flaunting them openly. The film does often feel like a deliberate sidestep, but that’s not a bad thing; any career circumvention that’s this much fun with a great performance from its lead is worthy of praise.

★★★½

Caught Stealing is in cinemas now.