Directed By Darren Aronofsky

Starring – Austin Butler, Zoe Kravitz, Matt Smith

The Plot – Hank Thompson (Butler), once a hotshot high school baseball prospect, turned unlucky alcoholic, going-nowhere bartender mistakenly gets caught up in a bloody treasure hunt through New York City. It turns out that the cat Hank’s neighbor (Smith) left in his care is sitting on a secret. Hidden at the bottom of its cage is a key wanted by a sadistic cop, Russian mobsters, a Samoan hit man, and a pair of psycho brothers who dress in leather gear.

Rated R for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use.

CAUGHT STEALING – Official Trailer (HD)

POSITIVES

Nothing about this film’s concept or its aesthetics seemed primed for one of the greatest psychological directors of our time, but credit Aronofsky to reinvent himself at such a pivotal point in his prestigious career, with what is easily one of his most accessible feature length films that he has ever conjured. Though the film is based on the Charlie Huston novel of the same name, with Huston himself serving as the movie’s screenwriter, the most intricate of touches stem from Aronofsky himself, who not only imbeds so much compelling personality to both the characters and the movie’s tone, but also vividly taps into its distinguished late 90’s setting, with an abundance of seamless production values that effortlessly transformed me back into the age that I grew up in. Whether in the depths of the particular song choices painting broad strokes of familiarity within a dual timeline of a narrative, the use of a Sony Venice 2 digital camera to inscribe a gritty grunginess to the Big Apple, or the complete deconstruction of Yonkers neighborhoods to emulate the dangerously weathered surroundings of its pre-gentrification, everything here plays a subtly effective touch towards justifiably rendering the story within the intended age, conveying insight into the terrifyingly dangerous set of circumstances that plagued New York, that Aronofsky utilizes within plenty of firmly established stakes and unforeseen twists to keep the audience hooked from start to finish. On the side of his characters, Aronofsky establishes Hank as a flawed protagonist, but one deserving of empathy from the many terrible decisions of his life that have all, in one way or another, stemmed from his bouts with the bottle. While it doesn’t take up an ample amount of the script’s focus, only occasionally weaving into frame to illustrate the lack of control that Hank has over his decision-making, it is something that feels conscientiously persistent to the awareness of the audience, appraising not only dramatic underlining to a tone that is otherwise consistently an action comedy, but also a redemption story of sorts for Hank, who constantly finds himself overwhelmed by abusive intruders at all hours of the night, which casts him vulnerably in the line of fire with many adversaries who share one common objective in McGuffin that leads to a constantly persistent narrative that refuses to give audiences too much time to catch their breath in the rapid fire sequencing of Aronofsky’s structure. This is perhaps the most meaningful impulse that he unloads at the film’s integrity, as a narrative that at least initially is surrounded in so much ambiguity, eventually gives way to knowledgeable insights and full throttled physical conflicts that are realized breathtakingly in the handheld motions of the lens, with weaving throughout the many claustrophobic confines of the neighborhoods and stacked businesses that never sacrifice urgency or clarity for the complexity in its approach to pursue our characters like the very fearless antagonists that one by one come knocking on Hank’s door, providing a rich combination of style and substance that Aronofsky has made a career artistically articulating. The film is also casted and acted exceptionally, with a dream team of familiar faces slipping effortlessly into roles that each of them feel born to portray, in order to steal away a scene or two with the mesmerizing charm they each give to the film’s integrity. This can certainly pertain to a Jewish brotherly duo of Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio, who each look nearly unrecognizable in their respective outfitting, Matt Smith’s profanity-laced punk rocker, or even the quick-thinking wit of Zoe Kravitz commanding a sweetly caring but take-no-shit assertive girlfriend to Hank, but each of them are mere spokes on the wheel to the emotional dexterity that Austin Butler unloads previously and post-traumatically after a bombshell of a development to his character. Butler’s initial trepidation as Hank, with both the bottle and the mental demons of what if’s from his past life, drive a lot of compelling curiosities about the character, but ultimately it’s the dramatic heft of his character’s second half evolution that ratchets the earnestness of his overwhelming plight, forcing him not only to confront his preconceived demons, in order to elicit legitimate change in his life, but also a vow towards vengeance that taps into the stoically resilient side of Butler’s demeanor, providing another credible step in the expansion of the actor’s capabilities that continues to make him one of the more sought after leads going in movies today. Last but not least, the aforementioned script from Huston does rely a bit on the comfortabilities of his original novel, without taking too many newfound chances, but I did enjoy the spontaneous impulse to spend more time alongside these dangerously deadly adversaries, especially considering the book and the movie share the consistency in abruptly swift pacing that makes the story practically fly by with unrelenting velocity in the devil of the details. Here, the insights into the developments of this missing key are managed with a bit more patience and vitality, without the exposition of the dialogue working overtime to paint such context, with very little in the slow down assembly of the stakes that makes this a continuous whiplash of an engagement.

NEGATIVES

Truthfully, there’s very little complaints from me about what Aronofsky was able to accomplish here, but I can say that the ending resolution felt a little rushed and underwhelming, considering it’s shrouded in such a deeply emotional personal conflict that deserves a therapeutic release from Hank, above all else. While the conflict is very hard hitting and full of permanent impact to those caught up in it, I wish the individualized sequences themselves took more time fleshing out a power struggle between the dynamics that in turn could’ve elicited more tension to the choreography of what’s brandished, but because the script has so much resolving still to do in its final fifteen minutes, it requires abrupt execution to tie up the movie’s many loose ends, in turn resulting in some grounded pay-offs to climactic moments worthy of so much more emphasized value to what eventually transpires. Aside from a bit of an underwhelming ending, compared to everything else in the film, I also took a bit of exception to the film’s comedic moments, which sometimes tried a bit harder than necessary to connect forcefully to an audience. This is felt the loudest during the first act of the movie, with certain lines of dialogue between Butler and Kravitz that feel deliberately like they’re talking to the audience, instead of each other, and landing only half as effectively by the telegraphed instances in punchline deliveries that I saw coming from a mile away. To be fair, humor is quite subjective, so my couple of effective landing instances might be doubled or tripled by someone else who loves this kind of material, but for me personally it stunted the script’s growth any time it reached for the lowest common denominator in reaching for instances too obvious and manufactured to feel natural, in turn taking away from the impeccable chemistry between its magnetic leads that didn’t require as much off-screen intrusion as that which is depicted fruitfully here.

OVERALL
“Caught Stealing” is an unpredictably rip-roaring odyssey of a story about remorse and redemption that sees one recovering alcoholic taking a bite out of the Big Apple, in order to take vengeance on those exploiting it with fear and paranoia. While the film does represent a creative and tonal expansion on the expectations of other Darren Aronofsky projects, the depth he supplants to the characters, as well the transformation towards emulating such a darkly devastating crossroads for New York City, in 1998, proves he’s the right man in adapting Charlie Huston’s story, with Austin Butler taking the biggest swing towards leveling a home run performance that comes up clutch in its most defining moments.

My Grade: 8.4 or B+