Darren Aronofsky has made the most surprising film of his career with Caught Stealing, and it might just be his best in years. Known for operatic intensity and psychological obsession (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, Mother!, The Whale), Aronofsky shifts gears here into something looser, grimier, and far more street-level. The result is a scrappy, high-octane, crime spree that feels less like the work of an established auteur and more like something you’d expect from the Safdie brothers.
At the centre of it all is Austin Butler, confirming his bona fides as a true movie star. As Hank Thompson, a washed-up New York bartender with a busted knee and a busted dream of baseball glory. Butler carries the entire film on his back and then some. He has the kind of classic Hollywood magnetism that keeps you watching even when Hank is at his lowest point — beaten bloody, strung along by criminals, or drowning in self-pity. If the mark of a star is whether they can hold the screen, Butler does it in the most natural way. He truly is the real deal.
The story, adapted by Charlie Huston from his own novel, plays like a modern pulp nightmare. Hank agrees to cat-sit for his dodgy punk neighbour Russ (Matt Smith, on brilliant form), only to find himself caught in a whirlwind of Russian mobsters, unhinged Hasidic gangsters, and a wild-card turn from pop star Bad Bunny – Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – that feels like it wandered in from a Guy Ritchie film.
What makes Caught Stealing work is the way it balances brutality with character. Hank’s decency — his tendency to acknowledge the people everyone else walks past — becomes both his weakness and his salvation. The ensemble is stacked (Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne), but the film never loses sight of Hank’s downward spiral. It’s violent, yes, but also strangely magnetic, with Aronofsky leaning into Huston’s writing instead of drowning it in style as per usual.
Not everything works — the pacing drags in spots, and a few of the supporting roles feel more like colourful sketches than fully fleshed-out characters — but there’s a rawness here that makes up for the other stuff. This is the most alive Aronofsky’s work has felt in over a decade, a film that proves he doesn’t need grand metaphors to keep us hooked. Sometimes all it takes is a man, a cat, and a city full of criminals closing in.
Caught Stealing is Aronofsky’s best in years, and another fantastic turn by Butler.
