Caught Stealing is a movie that feels pretty aimless without knowing its influences, which I think happens when a movie is made so inaccessible that you need a homework assignment for afterwards. It’s a little hard to criticize the plot without spoiling it, so here’s my attempt: The movie is based on screenwriter Charlie Huston’s book about a regular guy getting caught up in a neighbor’s small time criminality with a Mexican standoff of progressively meaner Final Bosses. Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz are the apparent tentpoles of the film until they’re not through some silly tropey shenanigans and then Butler sort of pinwheels around New York with whatever pair of bad guys has kidnapped him in the last few minutes. Darren Aronofsky talks about as paying homage to another screwball comedy about New York, going so far as casting an actor from Martin Scorsese’s After Hours from 1985.
In After Hours, Griffin Dunne is just a regular business guy who wants to pick up a girl at a bar AFTER HOURS and through a series of unfortunate events he finds himself stranded and hunted by the neighborhood watch. It’s silly and stupid and Dunne’s character is superficial and callous just as the script necessitates superficially callous things happen to the people around him to justify an escalating set of troubles should beset him.
Butler’s character is similarly caught in the fray not for his own shallowness but because he’s a Nice Guy with a Hot Head sort of Oedipus style if Oedipus had to watch the Sphinx for a friend who was visiting Attica for the weekend instead of solving a riddle or whatever. Unfortunately, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen all of the most interesting scenes including some of the final images of the movie–boldly. I haven’t met anyone who’s walked out of this movie satisfied with what they’ve seen, but I hope that Aronofsky finds a way to make better movies and worse trailers.
