Verdict: 3/5
Right off the bat new crime comedy ‘Caught Stealing’ is a home run. Alright that’s enough of the baseball puns but I really did enjoy this movie.
In 1998 Hank (Austin Butler), a former high school baseball player and bartender, lives in the Lower East Side in New York City.
Hank’s dodgy neighbour Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to look after his cat Bud while he visits his father in London.
Looking after a cat has never come with so much baggage! Hank finds himself caught between police, Russian thugs and Hasidic gangsters, all looking for one thing: a key that Hank unknowingly has in his possession.
What ensues is a dramatic, heartbreaking, violent and at times comedic series of events that the audience will never guess.
With a runtime of one hour and 47 minutes, the film isn’t lengthy in any terms, but I do think it was about 15 minutes and one plot twist too long. While plot twists are a great aspect of any movie, if there is too many of them, they begin to be cheap.
Another gripe for me was a certain part of the movie (if you watch it, you will know exactly what I’m talking about) that feels exceptionally out of place.
While the movie does lean into a lot of its violence this scene feels excessive and is then quite easily forgotten by all of the characters.
The movie is based on the 2004 novel of the same name written by Charlie Huston and directed by Darren Aronofsky.
Aronofsky is historically a divisive director with his films often leaning into the weird and wacky (‘The Whale’, ‘Mother!’ and ‘Black Swan’), but this one leaves the weird behind and instead focuses on the gritty.
‘Caught Stealing’ portrays the grimy and frantic underbelly of NYC in the late 90’s and is very reminiscent of early Guy Ritchie films, for me it is very evocative of 2000’s ‘Snatch’, a favourite of mine.
It traverses the depth of guilt, regret and violence with pockets of comedy that kept audiences from leaving feeling down.
See this movie at Hoyts Penrith.
