Caught Stealing

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Austin Butler, Zoe Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith

I told my wife Steph we were going to sit down and watch a thrilling, sexy crime mystery of a movie when I offered up ‘Caught Stealing’ on a random weekday night. Boy, was I mistaken. I should’ve known. This is Darren Aronofsky we are talking about. The man who directed Black Swan, a borderline horror movie. And Requiem for a Dream, which I absolutely qualify as a horror movie based on the nightmares Jared Leto gave me as a kid. But sometimes marketing works REALLY well. And in this case the trailer was one of action as opposed to melancholy. The lesson here is to never underestimate Aronofsky’s melancholy. 

No spoilers of course, but this man knows how to tug at your heart strings with a bleak, and I mean bleak, view of humanity. The premise is pretty straightforward – a former ball player gets asked to watch his neighbor’s cat for a weekend, and then all hell breaks loose. He finds himself wrapped up in a potential drug deal gone bad with all the wrong people you never want to be associated with. I loved the setting: gritty NYC vibes, it felt like I was watching ‘The Professional’ on the Upper East Side all over again. Capturing everyday New York life between bodegas, bars, and apartment buildings was perfect. Never a dull moment apart from Austin Butler’s quiet introspection as a failed professional athlete. We can only guess what’s going through his head most of the time but you also kind of already know. I knew a guy in college who blew out his arm after signing a $90,000 signing bonus with a pro team. He spent seventy-five of it on a truck. Tough break. He worked construction after that. 

That deep loss of identity is present here with Butler’s character, but the action of the film takes a left hand turn early and puts you right on your ass. It goes from character study to John Wick pretty quick. I loved it. My wife was less enthused based on how I had sold it into her (understandably). But this is actually where I think the movie turns for the better.

 Butler’s character is forced to reckon with his identity in a way that shows how his actions have an impact on other people more than himself. It’s easy to wallow in your failures. It’s simple to factor in all the external forces that led to your lack of success and blame them ad nauseam. What is hard is owning it. Taking accountability for how you contributed to your own failures and the consequences that affect everyone in your life. Seeing how your nature shows up in your shortcomings. I think we are all wired to blame outside forces as a defense mechanism. And it usually takes watching someone else wear our black eye before we realize how we’ve fallen short. Only for most of us, our path to redemption reveals itself more in spiritual form and less in a revenge-fueled robbery shootout. 

The redemption arc in Caught Stealing is not straightforward. There’s a lot of zigging and zagging and twists and turns that leave you guessing about who is responsible for what. I love that level of discombobulation as a viewer, but it may not be for everyone. I could hear my parents saying, “who are those guys?” every time a threat was reintroduced. In that way it absolutely succeeds as a great thriller: keeps you on your toes, keeps you guessing, keeps you dissatisfied until the end. 

My recommendation? Watch it with an open mind. Put yourself in Austin Butler’s shoes. Consider how we contribute to our own failure, and what that actually means for finding the light.