Why this movie: Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing caught me off guard. It starts with mind-boggling violence (I’m squeamish and had to cover my eyes several times) and then morphs into a jaunty caper in which all the threads neatly tie together. I particularly loved the references to the pre-gentrified New York City of the 1990s, starting with the opening credit sequence against subway tiles, scenes from the Lower East side, and a manic chase through Queens’s Flushing Meadows Park.
The ensemble cast features Austin Butler as former-baseball-prodigy-turned-bartender Hank. His promising career was cut short in an accident and he’s still trying to come to terms with that. There’s Hank’s mohawked next-door neighbor (Matt Smith) who leaves Hank in charge of his cat. There are Russian thugs and their accomplice, Colorado, played by a deliciously bad Bad Bunny; and Hank’s girlfriend (Zoë Kravitz), a sexy paramedic ready to bandage him up when he’s busted open. To top it off, Aronofsky gives us a canny police detective (Regina King) who won’t take any BS; and machine-gun toting Hasidic mobsters (Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Shrieber), Lipa and Shmully, who rush home to observe Shabbos. The entire film entertains right to the very end.
What they said: “There was something really fun about the ’90s,” Aronofsky says. “The music was amazing, the Soviet Union had collapsed and the only thing people were scared of was Y2K. Our biggest controversy was the president’s extramarital affair. Audiences will hopefully enjoy going back to all that and seeing answering machines and pay phones again.”
Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Charlie Huston. With Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz. 1 hour 46 minutes.
Streaming on Netflix, multiple platforms.
