Film Review: 'Caught Stealing' Is A Compelling Crime Drama Starring Austin Butler

Darron Aronofsky has a throughline - he makes films about addiction. Addiction to various topics: drug abuse (Requiem For a Dream), food (The Whale), even religion (Mother!). In Caught Stealing, Aronofsky’s latest entry, he focuses on the addiction of self-interest. Yes, our protagonist Henry “Hank” Thompson (a rugged yet movie-star dreamy Austin Butler) has a drinking problem. But he can’t complete his shift at the bar he works at without incessantly checking the score for his beloved San Francisco Giants. He has to call back his mother every day - not so much because he needs to talk about “mommy issues”, but because he needs to talk about the score of the last game. It’s the 1990s - will the Bonds-led Giants make it to the World Series?

See, Thompson was once a promising baseball prospect. Those dreams were dashed - as revealed in a series of flashbacks - by a drunk driving accident fresh out of high school, killing his best friend and shattering his knee. Thompson is more infatuated with his baseball career being destroyed than with the fact that he drove drunk and killed an innocent person. It’s a film about the addiction of not just self-interest, but running from the past. Thompson’s girlfriend, Yvonne (the excellent Zoe Kravits), calls him out on this as the drama starts to ramp up, how he can’t ever get serious when things around him start to do the same.

Thompson’s next-door neighbor, Russ (an Award-worthy Matt Smith) is a derelict gutterpunk, his red-orange mohawk nearly scraping the ceiling, who tells Hank that his father has had a stroke and he needs to return to London. His babysitting assistance is needed for his cat (another Award-worthy performance). The next day, two Russian toughguys (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikiti Kukushkin) are trying to break into Russ’ apartment. Hank sees them, and they demand to know where Russ is. He says he’s flown home, and they don’t believe him. They beat the everloving shit out of him, rupturing his kidney and landing him in the hospital.

More people are suddenly “looking for Russ” and trying to gain access to his apartment - a Puerto Rican mobster (Bad Bunny) and two imposing Hasidic Jews (brilliantly played with just the right balance of humor and malice by Liev Schrieber and Vincent D’Onofrio).

Aronofsky does a great job adapting the Charlie Huston novel for the big screen (equipped with a screenplay from Huston himself). We often look back on the 1990s as a time that we wish we could revisit, before technology ripped us apart, before politics became as insidious as it is now. With cinematographer Matthew Libatique on hand, Aronofsky films New York with a grimy honesty, never sugar-coating the look of its grody dive bars, apartment buildings, and city streets. The events of Sex and the City would be happening only a few blocks away, if we’re matching the timeline, a stark contrast to the reality of the world.

Caught Stealing weaves tonally between heavy-handed seriousness and endearing humor, its focus on protagonist Hank and the problems that his addiction causes both for himself and those around him. There are some solid twists throughout, and Butter is an affable lead, providing that he can indeed carry a film outside of the method-acting-induced madness we got to witness in Elvis (also an incredible performance). However, even when method acting is taken out of the picture, Butler doesn’t skimp away from subjecting himself to roles that take a physical toll on him. His character is bloodied and beaten, both physically and emotionally, for nearly two hours. Either way, the journey is a captivating one. Go Giants.

Caught Stealing is now playing in theaters everywhere.

Release Date: August 29th, 2025
Rated: R (for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity, and brief drug use)
Running Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Charlie Huston (based on the novel Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston)
Produced by: Jeremy Dawson, Dylan Goldeno, Ari Handel, Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Benito Martinez Ocasio, Griffin Dunne, Carol Kane