I caught this movie in theaters just a week after I saw The Roses, so that’s fun—two Doctors in new movies that are out at the same time! Matt Smith has just slightly more screentime here than Ncuti Gatwa does in The Roses, although his is more condensed. He definitely has more to do, though! While this role is small, it’s both pivotal and memorable.
Hank, a former high school baseball star whose pro dreams were cut short by tragedy, has no idea what he’s getting himself into when his neighbor Russ foists an emergency cat-sitting gig on him. Now shady characters are trying to break into Russ’s apartment—they’re after something, and they’re convinced that Hank knows about it.
I find that Darren Aronofsky is a director that I often appreciate more than I enjoy. His films are undeniably well made, but I sometimes have trouble connecting with them emotionally. I didn’t realize this was one of his until the end credits, at which point I thought, That makes sense. It took me a long time to get into Caught Stealing, probably until the second half of the story, even as I recognized the strong acting and how well it conveyed the feeling of this grimy 1990s New York City atmosphere. A lot of the characters didn’t really grab me, including Hank himself, which made it hard for me to get invested.
Hank is a very damaged character whose damage is extremely self-evident. The hints of the tragedy that changed the direction of his life aren’t subtle, and the main things we learn about him—obsessed with the San Francisco Giants, mama’s boy, drinks heavily to deal with his regrets—are immediately writ large. Austin Butler gets the job done in the lead role, but it’s not until Hank starts becoming more proactive in the story that I begin to feel for him. I’m more sympathetic to his sort-of girlfriend Yvonne, played by Zoe Kravitz. Yvonne is a long-suffering paramedic who’s tired of Hank’s self-destructive merry-go-round, and she struggles to offer him empathy without enabling him. Unfortunately, the character is underused and ultimately functions in service to Hank’s story.
The cast is stacked pretty deep. We get Regina King as a no-nonsense NYPD detective, along with Vincent D’Onofro and Liev Schreiber as a pair of Hasidic mobsters. Benito Martinez Ocasio (a.k.a. Bad Bunny) plays a drug kingpin, while Carol Kane, Laura Dern, and Tenoch Huerta (Namor!) make brief appearances. I was excited to see D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who I loved as Bear on Reservation Dogs, in the credits, but his role is very small as well—he plays a figure from Hank’s past, one who only appears in the flashbacks in Hank’s traumatic dreams.
Matt Smith plays Russ, the neighbor who gets Hank into this mess. Every inch a London punk, Russ is all emotion and aggravation and “go ahead, try me.” He sets off the story with a whirlwind, announcing that Hank needs to watch his cat while he flies to the U.K. to visit his father in the hospital.
As the film wore on, I started to worry that this was going to be Smith’s only scene, that Russ had set the ball rolling, disappeared offscreen, and wouldn’t come back. But he does pop up again later in the film. Smith and Butler play off each other really well—by this point, Hank is both freaked out and pissed off, and Russ somehow manages to understand the full gravity of their current situation while almost completely discounting the hell that he’s put Hank through. Their scenes together lend a slightly madcap air to the action that’s a lot of fun.
Accent Watch
London.
Recommend?
In General – A cautious maybe. The performances are all good, and from a technical standpoint, it’s very well-made. It’s not really a film for me, but it might be more up other people’s alley.
Matt Smith – I might. Even though it’s a fairly small role, I love Smith’s irreverent energy in it. The film definitely holds my interest the best whenever he’s onscreen.
Warnings
Graphic violence (including torture,) sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements.
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