Caught Stealing
2025
**½
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio, Benito Martínez Ocasio, Griffin Dunne, Carol Kane, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai
In 1998, Hank, a New York City bartender, agrees to look after his neighbour's cat. The seemingly simple favour throws him into the middle of Russian mobsters, Hasidic drug dealers, and corrupt cops, who are all searching for the same thing. Darren Aronofsky is known for his earnest and intense dramas, and this adaptation of Charlie Huston's 2004 novel is the closest he has come to making a straightforward genre film. The end result is a largely forgettable, darkly comic crime thriller. Hank goes through hell, but I never felt particularly sorry for him. Hank is a former high-school baseball star, so predictably he eventually gets to swing a baseball bat. The ending, in which he is generously rewarded for what amounts to a streak of bad luck, left a very bad aftertaste.
