{"id":10042275,"date":"2025-08-29T12:53:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/?p=10042275"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:55:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:55:30","slug":"caught-stealing-review-austin-butler-really-ties-the-film-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/2025\/08\/29\/caught-stealing-review-austin-butler-really-ties-the-film-together\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Caught Stealing’ Review: Austin Butler really ties the film together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In case you haven\u2019t heard, there\u2019s a new Darren Aronofsky movie, Caught Stealing<\/strong><\/em>, that\u2019s essentially being shadow-dropped into theaters this weekend, despite being directed by a Big Name<\/em> and starring one \u2014 Elvis himself, Austin Butler \u2014 as well. This is, well, weird. In the yo-yo arc of Aronofsky\u2019s career, he should be on the upswing, having been given a second second chance with The Whale<\/em> and helping win Brendan Fraser an Oscar in the process, and it feels like this was bound for another fall-or-spring weekend without an outdoorsy holiday tagged onto it as a brat-and-beer afterthought. No one prominently wears white or celebrates the glorious victories of organized labor \u2013 why bury this, what might be Aronofsky\u2019s best feature since The Wrestler<\/em>, in a known graveyard? Beyond the everyday chaos magick behind studios\u2019 scheduling schemes, I think the answer has something to do with how this work is very much<\/em> a traditional Aronofsky movie, as the man has a through-line and refuses to break from it. This creates an uneven balance in the thematic stew, a feeling that there is another cook in the kitchen fighting him at every turn \u2014 and the problem is that I wish Aronofsky lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call that Aaronofsky the \u201cCool Darren,\u201d who threatens us with a good time before the Aronofsky we know and give F Cinemascores to makes an appearance. Cool Darren\u2019s got a full-fledged wrong man potboiler ready for you to enjoy, and he\u2019s assembled a fantastic<\/em> cast to perform it. Based on Charlie Huston\u2019s novel (with the writer admirably performing script duties), Caught Stealing<\/em> is about the worst week that Hank Thompson (Butler) has had in a few years. He\u2019s a barkeep on the LES in the days right before the Strokes and the towers came down, a California expat who still dares to wear a Giants cap and talk incessantly <\/em>about his team even as the Mike Piazza-led Mets battle them for post-season pole position. It\u2019s the last days of Alphabet City as it was before the Duane Reades moved in and the rising rents forced this cast of misfits and losers out. He\u2019s got a solid little life \u2013 his boss (an unrecognizable Griffin Dunne, checking off the After Hours <\/em>nod box) lets him drink as much as he wants, his amazing girlfriend Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz) puts up with his shit and still somehow likes him, his mom loves <\/em>him and calls him every single day, and he\u2019s got a great<\/em> apartment. I mean, fuck Friends<\/em>, this is what people dream about today when they want to move to NYC. He doesn\u2019t know how good he\u2019s got it. All he can see is the big fuck-up that brought him here instead of on the diamond with the Giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said, great <\/em>apartment. Only problem is the neighbors, as it is with great pads like that. Specifically, his neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), a punk ne\u2019er-do-well, has a bad habit of skipping town and leaving Hank with his adorable cat, Bud. Bud\u2019s a biter, but for whatever reason, he loves Hank. So, when Russ\u2019 dad has a stroke and the trad-punk has to head back to dear ol\u2019 Blighty, the poor kitty is pawned off on his neighbor. This sets a nightmare<\/em> in motion \u2013 a day or so later, a pair of Russian mafiosi bang on Russ\u2019 door, Hank goes to check it out, and gets the shit beaten out of him for his trouble (we\u2019ll come back to this). When he\u2019s all recovered and ready to put it all behind him, it turns out that fate isn\u2019t quite done with him just yet. He spirals into a scheme involving a corrupt cop (Regina King), a Russian mob boss too goofy for Anora<\/em>, and two brothers (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D\u2019Onofrio) who are as strictly committed to the ruthless execution of their enemies as they are to their orthodox Judaism. As he dodges bullets and plots his escape, Hank can only wonder one thing: what the hell did he do to deserve this? Turns out he knows exactly what he did, and even though it\u2019s not related to the matter at hand, he can\u2019t help but feel like it\u2019s the Piper coming for payment. The cat gets out well enough, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, you can\u2019t really say the same for the main cast, and that\u2019s where good ol\u2019 Aronofsky shows up. See, Cool Darren is too busy working out fun banter between Butler and his co-stars, especially Kravitz and King, making the movie as thoroughly charming as it is engaging, or he\u2019s too busy planning out fun little set-pieces, like a car chase across Flushing that winds up at Shea right as a game ends. Or he\u2019s immersing himself in the lovely little details of \u201998 NYC that appear strewn throughout, gleeful reminders of an era long-gone-by that goes deeper than just the WTC towering over things (cell phone minutes! Giuliani banning dancing in bars!). That leaves Aronofsky enough space to try and figure out how to make you pay<\/em> for your entertainment, and I don\u2019t mean by convincing you to see it in theaters instead of sailing the high seas or waiting for streaming. To use the oft-quoted bit o\u2019 Bard, violent delights tend to have violent ends, and Aronofsky likes his to exact a heavy price. That beating I mentioned? Hank loses a kidney. Those colorful characters we quickly fall in love with? Well, they\u2019re not going to have that comfortable retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all feels very familiar \u2014 specifically that one story about a bet between God and the devil to see if they can break that unsuspecting righteous man, Job. At a certain point, it becomes hard to ignore that this is the throughline that unites all of Aronofsky\u2019s work, as it\u2019s not like there\u2019s a Straight Story<\/em> to complicate matters. Math Job<\/em>, Heroin Job<\/em>, Widower Job, Macho Man Randy Job<\/em>, The Jobcracker<\/em>, Job on a Boat<\/em>, Earth Mother Job, Fat Job<\/em> \u2014 the only thing Aronofsky enjoys more than punishing his characters is doing the same to his audiences. It\u2019s just a very staid and well-worn set of thematics, easy to dismiss if they weren\u2019t so blatant and heavy-handed in their application at the expense of everything else he\u2019s doing. Huston\u2019s not especially to blame for this, although I imagine his script truncates the bits of his novel that pad out the moments between us being reminded of Hank\u2019s never-ending suffering. It\u2019s more that Cool Darren and Aronofsky never manage to mesh in a way that would make Caught Stealing <\/em>truly sing aseither a romp through the NYC underworld (After Hours<\/em>) or a seedier and earnest exploration of guilt and grief (Good Time<\/em>). There are, after all, other key texts in the Abrahamic faiths to consider for storytelling fodder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only time this has really worked well for him is in The Wrestler<\/em>, where Robert Siegel\u2019s deeply human, empathetic script and Mickey Rourke\u2019s brilliant<\/em> performance manage to make Aronofsky see the beauty in his lead instead of that character\u2019s suffering. It\u2019s a credit to Cool Darren, Huston, and especially Butler that Hank comes the closest to equaling Randy the Ram in sheer humane likability. It\u2019s really hard not<\/em> to feel terrible for this dude, even if he did a truly shitty thing in his past (Aronofsky has to resort to dialogue to make that moment precisely land, because as its presented here, it\u2019s understandable that, in the specific flashback, he\u2019d be much more worried about some factors more than others without the reasoning supplied by exposition). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butler brings soul to the role, less a Pattinson Brando-type or a Dunne yuppie-goof than just a close-to-platonic-ideal of \u201cgoofy, likable shithead you\u2019d find serving moldy Stella in the LES on a Tuesday night to finance guys and kids with decent fakes.\u201d He\u2019s the connective tissue that makes Caught Stealing<\/em> work as an amiable yarn with a solid resolution, even if much of it is more of the same \u201conly through suffering can we achieve absolution\u201d shit that Aronofsky can\u2019t help but indulge himself in. In short: Let Cool Darren cook, my man.You might be surprised at how fun it is to let loose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you haven\u2019t heard, there\u2019s a new Darren Aronofsky movie, Caught Stealing, that\u2019s essentially being shadow-dropped into theaters this weekend, despite being directed by a Big Name and starring one \u2014 Elvis himself, Austin Butler \u2014 as well. This is, well, weird. In the yo-yo arc of Aronofsky\u2019s career, he should be on the upswing, having been given a second second chance with The Whale and helping win Brendan Fraser an Oscar in the process, and it feels like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":10042276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19452],"tags":[34504,7263,35876,14784,20180,26409],"class_list":["post-10042275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filmtv","tag-austin-butler","tag-cats","tag-caught-stealing","tag-darren-aronofsky","tag-film-review","tag-header"],"yoast_head":"\n'Caught Stealing' Review: Austin Butler really ties the film together<\/title>\n<meta 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