Darren Aronofsky is a director who has been a bit hit or miss during the course of his filmmaking career. Films like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and Mother haven’t necessarily been that well received by audiences. On the other hand, The Wrestler, The Whale, and Black Swan have been well received. His latest movie, “Caught Stealing,” is among the ladder films in his filmography. It’s not without its problems, but it was quite a blast to watch. I think audiences will love it as well as  definitely baseball fans.

Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler) is an ex-baseball player who currently works as a bartender in New York City, the East End. He has a beautiful girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz), and seems to be living a decent life. He even calls his mom back in the Bay Area of California so they can talk about their beloved San Francisco Giants who are trying to make the MLB playoffs in 1998 when this film takes place. Unfortunately for him, his punk rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) is going to England to tend to his sick father. He leaves him his cat to look after and a proverbial bag of $#!+. Once he leaves, Butler’s character is thrown into a crazy plot, involving many nefarious gangsters. 

This may be Aronofsky’s most accessible film to date. It has many things I think film fans will enjoy. The first is an interesting story. The story is a little crazy because of all the gangsters that are after the Butler character. There are some Ukrainian’s thugs, Nikita Kukushkin & Yuri  Kolokolnikov, led by a Porto Rican played by a Bad Bunny, a New York City detective played by Regina King and a couple Hebrews played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio. Butler’s character is constantly on the run if he’s not getting beat up and sent to the hospital by and from the group I just mentioned. A macguffin in the shape of a key is an ingredient that holds all of this together. The script is well written by Charlie Huston based on their own book of the same name. What a story this was.

I loved this cast. From Matt Smith (Doctor Who) who is playing a crazy punk rocker character to Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) who’s playing a corrupt Police Detective and Schreiber (Spotlight) and D’Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket) playing the two gangster Hebrews. All of these actors were having a lot of fun, it seemed in this movie. Zoe Kravitz (Batman) and Bad Bunny, a rapper, were more serious to me, but that’s because their characters were written that way. Even the Ukrainians who were a bit crazy were very fun to follow along with during the course of the film. Huston wrote some pretty amazing characters even though they may be a bit cliche at times during the movie. The actors who played made the most of their performances.

What almost stole the entire movie, though, for me, was a cat named Bud played by Tonic famous for (Pet Semetary, Thanksgiving). He was such an amazing animal performer. Quite often, he was either hiding under something or carried by Butler’s character. He even bit people when he needed to out of self-preservation or to protect the Butler character. When he was kicked or stepped on or something, the entire audience in unison said “oh”. You know, when you get the audience to react that way, you have a great animal performance going on. As a cat lover myself, I definitely fell in love with him in the film. 

Another aspect of the movie I loved was the baseball subplot. I remember about 19 years ago, there was a film named Game 6 where a character played by Micheal Keaton was a Red Sox fan, and he followed his team through the course of the film. The character played by Butler did the exact same thing except he was following along with the San Francisco Giants as they were trying to get the NL wild card of the New York Mets in 1998. This was a key plot thread throughout the movie. I loved how this was woven into the main story of the film so well. Baseball is such a part of the American culture that it was so cool that Huston added this into such an action film as this. I wasn’t as opposed to it like I was in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where Godzilla destroyed Fenway Park in Boston, the home of the Boston Red Sox, because the director was a huge LA Dodgers fan. Who knows, maybe one or both Aronofsky and Huston are big Giants fans.

Austin Butler came on the scene with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, in a supporting role, but he was the star of Elvis. He was great as this legendary singer-songwriter in 2022. Since then, he’s been in a few other projects like Dune Pt 2, The Bikeriders, and Most recently, Eddington. He’s garnered a lot of attention in his young career so far. This is the first time since Elvis, though, that he’s been the star of a film. He was terrific in this movie. I cared about everything he was going through in this film. He literally goes through hell during the context of this story. He’s the new leading man actor in Hollywood. He just has all the intangibles, as they say in baseball of a leading man. I loved him in this story, and the amazing supporting cast worked well opposite him and vice versa.  I want to see him in another movie right now. That’s how much I loved him in this film that checked a lot of boxes for me.

Caught Stealing is the typical summer movie that didn’t come out earlier in the summer. It has that feel to it. A young star on the rise, Butler, an auteur director Aronofsky, a fantastic story by Huston, based on his book, a fantastic supporting cast of Smith, Kravitz, King, Schreiber and D’Onofrio among others and plenty of action. Even the subtext of baseball and the cute cat are crowd-pleasing elements in this movie. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this film. It has so many of the things that I enjoy in movies. I’m just surprised that it came out at the end of the summer instead of earlier. I think audiences are going to love this action/crime movie. It has everything you need for an enjoyable filmmaking experience.

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen