“Caught Stealing”: A Review

Grade: B+

It looks like Darren Aronofsky will never top Requiem for a Dream (2000) and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He just keeps experimenting with genres until he lands on the one winner that will be a critical, audience, and awards season success for him.

In Caught Stealing (2025) it’s as if The Lost Weekend (1945) smashed into Anora (2024) (this time with less sex and copious gun violence) and all the chestnuts that screenplay gurus write and lecture about. It combines sentiment, comedy, noir, action, thriller, and a cat.

All of this seems well and good except that the movie as itself is just okay. As a satire of other films, it’s brilliant. It shows gritty New York City in the 1990’s much like the film Ghost (1990) except it is just on the precipice of gentrification here.

Actors like Austin Butler, Zöe Kravitz and Regina King deliver such great chemistry that the rest of the cast kind of get swallowed up into the picture. Even Action Bronson gives a good turn as a barfly.

The twists and turns all come at “okay, I get it” speed. There are at least four shots of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Again, the benefit of the doubt is fully extended to Aronofsky. He is showing how generic, run-of-the-mill films present establishing shots of major landmarks in cities like New York.

The worst (or best) depiction is that of the two Jewish criminals. Now, they’re worse than Shakespeare's Shylock, Danté’s financiers, and Spike Lee’s Flatbush brothers combined. They’re actual murderers nevermind greedy, miserly, duplicitous Jews.

Aronofsky is Jewish as well as one of the crime figures Liev Schrieber. Carol Kane shows up who is also Jewish and well, Zöe Kravitz has Jewish blood pumping through her, too. This decision sprang out of the sordid history of anti-Semetic film roles that have been passed down the line through the decades.

Again, the joke is on the audience member who doesn’t see that this is all a big ruse. It’s a charade, damn near farce of Hollywood tropes and chestnuts.

The horrific memory that plagues the main character Henry “Hank” Thompson, drives him to drink (a great deal) but he retains his skills as a baseball player. Instead of being a writer in Weekend, Hank can swing a bat.

His girlfriend Yvonne, played by Kravitz, exhibits a streetwise and bittersweet persona that oozes from the screen.

For all its obviousness and lack of subtlety, this film lends itself to the idea that a film can present what at least a dozen or more films end up showcasing: a beach scene at the ending. This well-trod sequence is so worn out that it spans decades of moviemaking.

Without giving anything away, the throughline of preserving the life of a kitty is explored throughout. This is clearly a reference to the screenwriting screed, Save the Cat written by Blake Snyder.

What Aronofsky does to present the story with enough action, tough talk, and comedic timing is a joy to witness, knowing that all of this is claptrap (done on purpose). The film is a glorious ride through pre-9/11/2001 New York City. The deftness of weaponizing dialogue and including dizzying twists marvel the viewer.

The way you simultaneously see what’s coming and then not expect something is fine filmmaking. That blending of styles makes it a popcorn movie with residue that can be construed as more fat than grease.

In this picture, it’s easy to pick it apart and analyze every bit. To just take it as a whole like the films of the 1970’s and 80’s that feature dirty cops and mob bosses, beautiful women and sympathetic leading men, this movie checks all of those boxes.

Even the title is more of a play on the idea that good artists copy and great artists steal. Well played, Mr. Aronofsky.

Objective Observations:

• The superglue scene is not original but fit well into the movie.
• Punk attitudes towards perceived “Yuppies” and real burgeoning website developers do not mix.