Caught Stealing is the latest film from both Darren Arronofsky and Austin Butler, and fittingly, it’s a little unlike their typical work. Butler continues to show impressive range with a wide variety of performances, but Arronofsky typically doesn’t branch out beyond the bleak, unrelenting darkness his movies are usually rife with. His latest work certainly isn’t lacking in bleakness or gloom, but it showcases that he’s far from a one-trick pony. The same is true of Butler, one of the best actors working today.

Caught Stealing Review

Caught Stealing works on so many impressive levels. It’s a fantastic crime thriller, but it also works as cat propaganda, a cautionary tale about alcohol, and an admonition on running from your problems. Austin Butler bears the brunt of all of that masterfully, perfectly encapsulating the rage, pain, and fear that drives Hank Thompson.

Thompson is a former baseball standout who lost his career to a drunk driving accident of his own fault. He’s spent his entire life running from that problem, all while obsessively following his beloved San Francisco Giants, the team he was hoping to get drafted out of high school to. He continues running and running and running until he can’t run anymore, at which point, he is forced to face all of his problems head on.

There’s something so brilliant about using baseball as the setting and backdrop here. For one, it’s the greatest sport out there, but it’s hard. Thompson was good at it, but it’s hard, probably the hardest sport to get good at. It’s full of failure and running, two things that have defined Thompson since that fateful accident. They continue to define him throughout the movie’s brisk 1:47 runtime until he finally owns up to his mistakes and takes responsibility.

There’s a lot that goes wrong for the baseball player turned bartender, much of not directly his fault, but it comes as a result of something he did. That’s important, as it provides a thematic through line from the beginning of Thompson’s tale, which is that car crash, until the end of the movie. At its core, Caught Stealing is about owning up to your mistakes and not running from problems.

Butler is undeniable in the role, putting yet another impressive feather in his cap. He has really exploded in the last few years, and it’s easy to see why here. He handles everything the role asks of him, which is more than you’d expect, with aplomb.

The pacing is really strong, too. There are only brief lulls, but they’re purposeful. The audience is meant to sit with some things for a beat longer than we otherwise would, but then it’s back off to the races. Darren Arronofsky’s direction is sturdy as usual, guiding everything through a whip-smart script.

That script, which is penned by Charlie Huston, is brilliant. That could be because Huston wrote the novel that the film is based on and pulled a Gillian Flynn to write the screenplay (Flynn wrote Gone Girl and then the movie’s screenplay, and it’s a near perfect book-to-film adaptation). Everything matters, even those things that seem innocent or pointless. It all comes back around either in the plot or thematically, and it wraps in a satisfying way.

The supporting cast is good, too. Regina King is great, but Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio have a really great chemistry that adds some much-needed levity to the madness. Zoe Kravitz is criminally underused, but she and Butler have a dynamite chemistry that shines whenever they’re onscreen together. Bad Bunny is pretty funny, too, and Matt Smith seems to be enjoying himself. It all bleeds through into the final product.

Stealing Home

Caught Stealing is a really good time in the theater, even if you’ll probably be stunned at how poorly things start to turn. It is a Darren Arronofsky film, after all, but it brings a lot of energy that makes it well worth the watch. It’s a throwback to a mostly bygone era of storytelling, going back to those classic 90s crime thrillers, with a lot to say, and for that, it’s well worth the price of admission.

Score: 4/5