To call Caught Stealing a return to form for Darren Aronofsky wouldn't be accurate, even though it's better than his last film. And that's partly because no two Aronofsky movies are alike. Sure, they're all about obsession and characters pushing themselves beyond their limits. But Pi is radically different from The Wrestler, which is radically different from The Fountain.
The powerful but occasionally stupefying filmmaker has had a tumultuous last 15 years. After his critical and commercial breakthrough with Black Swan, it's been arguably nothing but misses. Noah pissed off millions of religious folks and bewildered general audiences. The Whale earned two Oscars – including a well-deserved win for star Brendan Fraser – but might be his least compelling film. And mother! just may be the single most polarizing movie of the 2010s.
Caught Stealing once again finds an obsessed protagonist (Austin Butler) stretching his body beyond what it can bear. But it has a zany energy unlike any of Aronofsky's other works. Which is not to say the film is all laughs. This is a movie with numerous gruesome deaths and visceral injuries. It's a refreshingly nasty piece of work, which is all the more surprising coming from a major studio.
Butler plays Hank, a former top baseball prospect who now spends his days tending bar, numbing his pain with booze. Some Russian thugs start coming around his apartment looking for his neighbor Russ (Matt Smith), and they give Hank a thrashing so bad he wakes up in the hospital short a kidney.
And that's the best day Hank will have the rest of the film. The Russians come back, this time with a Puerto Rican drug dealer (Bad Bunny). And two even more dangerous Hasidic Jews (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio) are hot on his trail. All of them seek something Hank doesn't know he has, but will prove to be incredibly valuable.
Writer Charlie Huston – adapting his own novel – has plenty of twists and turns laid out. But the film has at least one double-cross too many, and the momentum grinds to a halt before its explosive climax. Yet it's still transfixing, and a big part of that is Butler. While he was exceptional (and Oscar-nominated) in the otherwise lousy Elvis, it's this film that really proves his movie star bonafides. Hank is absolutely a dirtbag with a lot of blood on his hands. But he's still so likable and persistent that it's impossible not to root for him.
Caught Stealing might pale in comparison to other recent NYC crime movies. But its magnetic lead and unrelenting intensity still make it worth catching.
