Review: ‘Caught Stealing’ robs from the best ‘90s crime films

2025 / Dir. Darren Aronofsky

☆ 3/5

Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as Henry “Hank” Thompson, a down-and-out former baseball player escaping his past in New York City, who becomes the target of several wacky criminals after agreeing to watch his wacky punk neighbor’s (Matt Smith) wacky cat. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, thanks to its cast and the many hallmarks of much better ‘90s crime films Caught Stealing lifts from, but there’s not much you haven’t seen here before.  

Hank is working as a dive bartender, years after a horrific accident ruined his chances of ever playing for his dream team, the Giants. We know it’s his favorite team because they’re referenced constantly, including every phone call with his mother that ends “Go Giants!” The film takes place in 1998, which we know because we see close-ups of Jerry Springer on TV, Hank’s cordless phone with an answering machine, and are treated to some Smash Mouth and other ‘90s “gems.” We also know Hank’s an alcoholic in a faux-’90s movie because he has bottles hidden everywhere in his apartment yet shows no other signs of having a drinking problem, and has a wild night out set to Semisonic’s “Closing Time.” 

After getting stuck with Matt Smith’s cat, whom he mostly takes in to appease his sort-of-girlfriend Yvonne (a criminally underutilized Zoë Kravitz), a pair of ridiculous Russian goons beat him up after Hank interrupts them trying to break into Matt Smith’s apartment. One trip to the ER later, it’s a constant parade of entertainingly odd characters like Liev Schrieber and Vincent D’Onofrio as two Hasidic drug kingpins and their adorable mother (Carol Kane), the singer Bad Bunny as a menacing mid-level henchman, and Regina King as a police detective either out to entrap or save Hank from his unwanted drug world adventure. 

There are plenty of twists and turns and familiar crime movie hallmarks that keep things moving, but it’s the casting that’s a real highlight here and keeps Caught Stealing from being a total pastiche of the Coens/Tarantino/Ritchie/Elmore Leonard/etc. Zoë Kravitz shines, even though she has only brief appearances, and she has an electrifying chemistry with Austin Butler. Please give her more starring roles, or at the very least, a Catwoman spinoff. 

Speaking of Butler, this is really his first major “I’m a movie star now” role after a string of captivating performances following his breakthrough as Elvis. He has to lead a film as an everyman, and he pulls it off in what’s not a very showy part. He wrings genuine pathos out of a fairly stereotypical role as the good guy who needs to go through a wild experience to get over his trauma and forgive himself. It’s genuinely captivating to watch him try to get out of whatever often painful mess he’s in and keep getting back up again. 

Your enjoyment of this film may hinge on whether you’re a fan of director Darren Aronofsky or not. If you’re like me and found him early on in your cinema journey, watching this feels like he’s not here at all. Clearly this was an attempt to make a more conventionally entertaining film, which is not inherently wrong. Aronofsky making a ‘90s-set movie could have been an opportunity to dust off some of the paranoid cinematic tricks from Pi and Requiem for a Dream and apply them to a genre film. He could have touched on the psychological pathos of Black Swan to deepen Hank’s trauma. 

There are so many tools he could have used to put his spin on the genre, while still keeping it entertaining. The fact that there are so many clichés in this, like the blasé approach to Hank’s drinking from the guy who made Requiem, is perplexing. There’s another done-to-death narrative trope that I won’t spoil, but how it happens and how quickly the movie races past it feels like an insult. 

Ultimately, that’s what makes Caught Stealing an odd film, even for one so conventional. A terrific cast full of stars on the rise, like Butler and Kravitz, can make a meal out of warmed-over ‘90s crime film tropes, while an iconic boundary-pushing director hardly seems present. Let’s hope this is just an amusing pitstop in everyone’s careers.  

Watch if you like: True Romance, early Guy Ritchie, The Big Lebowski, and copious scenes of shirtless Austin Butler’s shredded abs.