action, Austin Butler, Bad Bunny, Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, Benito Martinez Ocasio, Caught Stealing, comedy, Darren Aronofsky, Laura Dern, Matt Smith, movies, New York City, Nikita Kukushkin, reviews, Vincent D'Onofrio, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Zoe Kravitz
August 25, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Some language in Spanish, Russian and Hebrew with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1998, in New York City, the comedy action film “Caught Stealing” (based on the novel of the same title) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African American and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A bartender, who used to aspire to be a professional baseball player, becomes the target of deadly danger after unwittingly getting mixed up in a neighbor’s criminal activities.
Culture Audience: “Caught Stealing” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Darren Aronfosky and intense action thrillers that have acerbic comedic touches.
“Caught Stealing” is a winning blend of high-octane action, crime thriller, and screwball comedy. The carnage is predictable and a bit repetitive, but the movie excels with unforgettable characters and a stylish presentation. The movie’s violence might be too much for some viewers, but for viewers who want to see a “Pulp Fiction”-type of film, then “Caught Stealing” is worth watching, even though it’s not as inventive as “Pulp Fiction.”
Directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Charlie Huston, “Caught Stealing” is based on Huston’s 2004 novel of the same name. The movie takes place in 1998, in New York City, where “Caught Stealing” was filmed on location. It has the look and feel of a classic crime caper that could’ve been made in the 1990s.
In “Caught Stealing,” Butler plays Henry “Hank” Thompson, a bartender who lives and works in a gritty neighborhood on the city’s Lower East Side. Hank (whose hometown is the fictional Patterson, California) is a passionate fan of the San Francisco Giants. Hank is a good-but-flawed guy who has broken dreams of being a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball.
He’s haunted by a car accident that he had about 15 years ago, when was in his late teens and on track to be recruited straight from high school (where he was a star player) into Major League Baseball. Hank was driving in this car accident, which resulted in a knee injury that ended his chances of playing professional baseball. Several scenes in the movie show Frank waking up from having a nightmare about this accident, and more details are revealed about why this accident was so traumatic.
Hank is a bachelor who lives alone in a small apartment. There are indications that he’s addicted to alcohol. (He likes to get drunk a lot, and there are more liquor bottles than food in his refrigerator.) Hank is having a casual “friends with benefits” relationship with a paramedic worker named Yvonne (played by Zoë Kravitz), who has a tough-but-tender personality.
Hank might be an underachiever in some areas of his life, but one thing he doesn’t slack off from is calling his mother (played by Laura Dern, in an uncredited cameo) on a regular basis. His mother, who lives in California, is also a hardcore fan of the San Francisco Giants. Hank ends his conversations with her by saying, “Go Giants.”
The lives of Hank and other people get turned upside down when Hank’s next-door neighbor Russ Minor (played by Matt Smith) suddenly asks Hank to take care of his cat Bud played by Tonic) because Russ has to go back to his native London to look after Russ’ dying father. Russ has a Mohawk and dresses like a punk who looks like he stepped out of a 1978 Sex Pistols concert.
Hank finds out soon enough that Russ is involved in criminal activities. And soon enough, several people come looking for Russ. Hank gets caught in the crossfire because these people think Hank has information that they need. The trailer for “Caught Stealing” already reveals that Russ stole $4 million in cash from some criminals.
“Caught Stealing” shows the madcap and brutal experiences that Hank goes through to stay alive—while also looking out for Russ’ cat Bud. Among the tough people who come into contact with Hank are New York Police Department investigator named Elise Roman (played by Regina King); a nightclub owner named Colorado (played by Benito Martínez Ocasio, also known as Bad Bunny); two Russian Mafia thugs named Pavel (played by Nikita Kukushkin) and Aleksei (played by Yuri Kolokolnikov); and two Orthodox Jewish rabbis named Lipa (played by Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (played by Vincent D’Onofrio), who have some of the best scenes in the movie.
Butler leads the cast in all the right ways. He’s skilled at handling scenes as an “everyman” action star, as well as scenes with droll comedy and poignant drama. The supporting cast members, except for Kravitz as complicated Yvonne, have characters with two-dimensional personalities. However, the movie’s dialogue is snappy enough where some of these stereotypes don’t really matter. “Caught Stealing” is a fairly wild ride that has some very familiar tropes, but it’s a brash and adrenaline-filled experience that’s a tribute to human resourcefulness and reinvention.
Columbia Pictures will release “Caught Stealing” in U.S. cinemas on August 29, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on August 23, 2025.