Caught Stealing
August 26th, 2025
MOVIE: CAUGHT STEALING
STARRING: AUSTIN BUTLER, ZOË KRAVITZ, REGINA KING, MATT SMITH, LIEV SCHREIBER, VINCENT D’ONOFRIO
DIRECTED BY: DARREN ARONOFSKY
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 STARS (Out of 4)
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 107 MINUTES
Caught Stealing is directed by Darren Aronofsky—but if you hadn’t told me, I never would have guessed. This doesn’t feel like a film from the same man who gave us Black Swan or Requiem for a Dream. In many ways, it’s a conventional story: a good guy with a streak of bad luck gets tangled up with terrible people and has to claw his way out. Sure, some moments are dark and disturbing—proof that Aronofsky hasn’t shed his bleak worldview—but this is more of a fast-paced plunge into a world of criminals, thugs, and Hasidic gangsters in 1990s New York City. The result is a surprising, entertaining ride through the life of a man who just can’t seem to escape trouble.
We follow Hank Thompson (a superb Austin Butler), a former baseball phenom and devoted San Francisco Giants fan, who’s now bartending at a grimy New York dive. His girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), is an EMT who drops by after her shift to flirt and unwind. One night, Hank’s neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), asks him to watch his cat, claiming his father is sick. Hank agrees—unaware that Russ has just set off a chain of events that will unleash a rogues’ gallery of violent pursuers: a pair of Russian mobsters, a shady club owner named Colorado (Bad Bunny), a crooked cop named Roman (Regina King), and two Hasidic enforcers, Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio). They’re all after a large sum of money, and Hank, unwittingly, is stuck right in the middle.
At first, the pacing and world-building are disorienting—I wasn’t sure where we were going. But once the manic rhythm settles in and the colorful characters begin to pile up, it all clicks. The screenplay, by Charlie Huston (who also wrote the novel it’s based on), bursts with personality. That’s a notable shift from Aronofsky’s usual fare. His characters typically grapple with heavy personal demons—addiction, depression, neglect. Hank has some of those issues, but here, it’s more about survival. The real chaos comes not from within, but from the world closing in around him.
The film wears its influences openly—there are echoes of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc?—but Aronofsky brings his own edge, refusing to let his characters show much softness. Despite the central focus on Hank, it’s the supporting cast that often steals the spotlight. Still, Butler holds his own with a relentless, watchable energy. His performance evokes Keanu Reeves in Point Break, Patrick Swayze in Road House, or John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He’s proving himself to be a compelling leading man.
The film is further enhanced by its period setting—New York in 1996 feels perfectly realized—and an adorable co-star in the form of Russ’s cat, who adds just the right amount of absurdity to the chaos.
Beneath the surface, Caught Stealing still wrestles with familiar Aronofsky themes: a protagonist trapped in his circumstances, fighting to survive both external threats and internal demons. That tension builds throughout this wild, chaotic journey of a man just trying to see another sunrise.
After the muddled mess of The Whale, the bar was low—but this is the version of Aronofsky I want to see more of. Caught Stealing is an unpredictable, delightfully unhinged experience.
3 STARS
CAUGHT STEALING IS PLAYING IN THEATERS FRIDAY, AUGUST 29TH, 2025.
Written by: Leo Brady
