In Darren Aronofsky’s ’90s-set crime comedy, Austin Butler shines as a magnetic movie star alongside an incredible ensemble despite a dull script and dim direction. While Caught Stealing feels repetitive of many New York crime films from the past, Butler and Co. make this worth watching. 

Darren Aronofsky was once a most promising storyteller with films such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream or mother!, yet with each film following his 2017 work with Jennifer Lawerence, his story choices have gone in a different, however, less challenging direction. And while story and character wise that’s an interesting pivot further into your career, the writer/director has shifted to directing the scripts of other writers and seemingly losing the grittiness best serving the audience his protagonists. While many of his best films were not written by Aronofsky himself, Black Swan or The Wrestler, post a deeply personal film such as mother!, it seems Aronofsky’s identity as a director is lost in the shuffle of what he feels he needs to do next. 

While The Whale was an Oscar success, the film felt it used the director’s best tendencies in the worst (and most offensive) ways. In Caught Stealing, it’s almost hard to tell this is even an Aronofsky film. Outside of being an obsessive protagonist set in grimy New York, nothing about the film feels like Aronofsky film. The cinematography, by Aronofsky regular Matthew Libatique, doesn’t feel as special as the duo’s normal collaborations. Despite the incredible performances, the entire film feels repetitive of any New York crime thriller you’ve seen before.

Academy Award Nominee Austin Butler cemented himself as a movie star with Elvis and following it up with Dune: Part Two, however, Caught Stealing is his first time back as a leading man post his first Oscar nomination. His portrayal of Hank in the film puts him on the right track as a leading man bound for greatness. Despite such a stale script and lackluster direction, Butler is mesmerizing, even as Hank is sort of boring and not interesting at all. However, following around a main character that isn’t the most thrilling allows for higher stakes and an amazing onset of characters filling out the ensemble, which the script, adapted by Charlie Huston from his own 2005 novel, does wonderfully aided by brilliant, fun performances from a slew of amazing actors, including Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Bad Bunny, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Nikita Kukushkin. While not the most developed, it doesn’t truly matter here as the film is decently paced and easy to just glide along with this crew of misfits. 

Aronofsky films typically follow an obsessive, such as Nina Sayers in Black Swan or The Wrestler’s The Ram, however, Caught Stealing focuses on Hank, who is suffering at not being able to move on after losing his obsession, baseball. It could be an interesting angle for the director to move into, however, the film is bogged down as it tries to hurry from one death to another (never the cat though, not even a spoiler, we just need to know). It’s thrilling to watch a film where characters are actually expendable and death isn’t just a scare tactic, but actually a possibility, however, by killing so many characters off and so quickly, we never feel the real stakes imposed on them because the story bounces from one death to the next. 

Butler shines as a magnetic movie star alongside an incredible ensemble despite a dull script and dim direction. While Caught Stealing feels repetitive of many New York crime films from the past, Butler and Co. make this worth watching.

Grade: B-

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: None
Should be Considered: None

Where to Watch: In Theaters