Caught Stealing (2025)

• Director: Darren Aronofsky
• Screenplay: Charlie Huston
• Cast: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio
• Cinematography: Matthew Libatique
• Editing: Andrew Weisblum
• Score: Rob Simonsen
• Genre: Black comedy crime thriller
• Runtime: 107 minutes

A once promising young baseball star, Henry ‘Hank’ Thompson (Austin Butler), finds himself in all sorts of trouble when he gets involved with unpleasant criminals in New York City. His West Coast sports career derailed in a car accident, Hank now works as a bartender, still haunted by the crash that crushed his dreams.

Hank is tasked with looking after his British punk revivalist neighbour Russ (Matt Smith)’s cat while the latter is visiting his dying father in his homeland. Two nasty Russian cronies come knocking on Russ’ door – Hank, refusing to tell the thugs anything, is left without a kidney following a savage beating from the pair. Hank is down to his last out. The Russians are hounding him for information about Russ’ whereabouts and he’s being pursued by a couple of gun-toting Jewish gangsters. Caught in the crossfire, Hank must do what he can to survive.

Darren Aronofsky paints a gritty picture of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the late 1990s; the grime and violence exuding from the screen. You can feel the buzz of imminent danger crackling from around every corner. The big city ain’t so pretty. The attempts to gentrify the area have failed; the underbelly of dodgy drug dealers and corrupt cops lingers on.

Butler and Regina King (playing a narcotics detective) knock it out the park with their performances. Aronofsky steps up to the plate and scores a home run with ‘Caught Stealing‘. Buckle up – this is one wild ride.

My rating: 8 / 10