Review: Caught Stealing

Director:  Darren Aronofsky

Stars:  Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz, Liev Schreiber

Darren Aronofsky’s cinema has never felt casual, or light. Even where there’s been humour, it’s been of the gallows variety. Over the course of 30 years, he’s tended toward the overwrought, the suffocating, the pessimistic and the stressful. But everyone needs a break now and then.

His latest appears – from a distance – to be such a holiday away from himself. Of course, these things are all relative. Caught Stealing vomits on glass doors, breaks bones, spills blood and opens up stapled surgical wounds… but in a light way, yaknow? If Aronofsky’s version of “touching grass” is a high-energy, low(ish)-stakes and only semi-serious skirmish around the NYC neighbourhoods that birthed his filmography, it certainly seems to suit him.

Filmed from Charlie Huston’s screenplay of his own novel, Caught Stealing temporally takes Aronofsky back to those roots. Set in 1998, it’s possibly even contemporaneous with his high-minded monochrome breakout π, and there’re plentiful tidbits of nostalgia for those pre-millennium days, from the hits of Madonna and Garbage to the stacks of VHS tapes that litter the rundown apartment of functioning alcoholic bartender Hank Thompson (Austin Butler). A one-time contender for baseball stardom, Hank dinged-up his knee and caused the death of a high school friend in the same car wreck; an accident that he’s been fleeing from in some form or another ever since. Still, he’s pleasantly smitten with paramedic Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) and the pair seem to enjoy coyly circling whatever term might define their relationship of convenience.

Things take a Raymond Chandler-esque turn, however, when Hank’s neighbour Russ (Matt Smith in full mohawked punk mode) splits town, leaving him his cat to look after. Soon, all manner of goons are prowling the neighbourhood with the clear assumption that Hank’s in on something Big. He’s set upon by hulking Russians (an altercation that costs him a kidney), chased by Hasidic Jews and threatened by small-time Puerto Rican mobster Colorado (Bad Bunny). Even police detective Roman (Regina King) seems intent on fuckin’ with him. The world seems to want Hank to keep moving. All Hank wants to do is go home. 

With it’s puckish sets of caricatured gangs and frequent pockets of brash, kinetic violence, Caught Stealing initially veers toward the high-spirited thuggery of Guy Ritchie, but the ever-present feline keys in to an altogether different set of cinematic reference points; the brothers Coen. While Huston’s humour doesn’t have quite the same wit and sparkle, Caught Stealing frequently plays like a grimy splicing of The Big Lebowski and Inside Llewyn Davis, batting a beleaguered protagonist from borough to borough, coercing him into the role of reluctant private eye. 

If the film seems to lack for a USP in our present age of quickly-sold high-concept ‘properties’, its most appealing features are hidden in plain sight. Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz present as effortless stars from the get-go, a sexy match bursting with chemistry. It’s a continual pleasure to be in their company. Indeed, Kravitz’s early narrative exit is so disappointing that it single-handedly feels like it keeps the movie from greatness. This is Butler’s show, however. One senses that he, like Aronofsky, is using Caught Stealing to depressurise a little. This synchronicity between filmmaker and star is palpable. And, through Butler, we get the realisation that Aronofsky might not be on cruise control.

For all it’s episodic action and relative optimism, Caught Stealing nags at old preoccupations. Addiction, for one. Hank is haunted by his past, not just what happened but how he handled the aftermath, and while his breezy nature seeks to conceal it, the interior of his rundown apartment evidences his alcoholism. With a kidney removed he is compelled – medically – to change. One might read all of the plot chaos that ensues as a manifestation of that process; a barrage of pressures that he is not ready for, and that compel him toward some tough realisations. This is where Huston’s screenplay, Aronofsky’s direction and Butler’s performance find their clout.

If there’s an obvious connection point outside of the Coens, it’s Scorsese and particularly the overnight odyssey of After Hours. That Griffin Dunne has a riotously enjoyable supporting role here is surely not a coincidence. Some of the supporting casting choices fit their roles better than others, but it’s also worth sticking around at the end credits for a surprise big-hitter before the credit crawl. 

It’s been quite a week for the old New York crime thriller with Spike Lee’s sleek Kurosawa do-over Highest 2 Lowest also hitting various screens. Aronofsky’s love for the city is just as pronounced and flavoursome, but his affections hit like rancid sense-memory reminiscences of dirty dive bars and piss-smelling stairwells. The appeal of the grime. If these two lifer auteurs can conjure up a new wave of NYC crime yarns of a similar calibre, I say bring ’em on. Indeed, for Aronfosky, Caught Stealing presents an interesting way forward in which his darker inclinations might be wrapped up smartly in more appealing material. We wouldn’t be worse off if this became a permanent vacation.