Review: 'Caught Stealing' is a dark crime caper that shows Austin Butler's ability to adjust his charisma to fit the movie he's in

After proving he can own a big movie, playing The King in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” actor Austin Butler shows in Darren Aronofsky’s dark crime caper “Caught Stealing” that he can scale his big personality down to fit the material — and still own every moment of the movie.

Butler plays Hank Thompson, a New York bartender, circa 1998, with an unhealthy obsession with the San Francisco Giants. He has a drinking problem, something his paramedic girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), tries to get him to get under control. He also has a punk musician neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), who asks Hank to look after his cat when he has to leave town suddenly. 

That’s where Hank’s problems start. Two Russian thugs (Yuri Kolkolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin) come looking for Russ, and when Hank intervenes, they beat the crap out of him — leaving him to wake up in the hospital, Yvonne at his bedside, with one fewer kidney than he started the week with. When he calls the cops, Detective Roman (Regina King), takes his statement and warns him against trying to learn too much on his own. This being the kind of noir crime drama this is, Hank can’t heed that warning.

Soon the trail of unsavory characters in Hank’s life include a gun-happy gangster named Colorado (played by Benito Martinez Ocasio, also known by his musical name, Bad Bunny), and a pair of Hasidic Jewish mobsters (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio) with a lethal reputation. 

Aronofsky puts aside his more surrealist tendencies (e.g. “Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan,” “Mother!”), playing Hank’s plight more in the gritty realism of “The Wrestler” and “The Whale.” The new wrinkle is that Charlie Huston’s script (adapted from his novel) injects some comedy, some of it on the morbid side, into the story, like when the mobsters take a captive Hank along to Shabbos, where we meet their bubbe (Carol Kane) and have some matzo ball soup.

Those tonal shifts can be a bit jarring at times, but Butler’s performance holds us steady throughout. In a story where he is playing the man caught up in other people’s intrigue, Butler doesn’t play Hank as a dupe or a fall guy, but as a man who is a step behind the story but capable of catching up and turning the tables. Hank also has a backstory, parceled out judiciously, to explain why his once-promising baseball career never came to fruition.

“Caught Stealing” is also the third movie this month (after David Mackenzie’s “Relay” and Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest”) to take advantage of a certain view of New York City — in this one, a roiling undercurrent of crime and disenchantment, three years before 9/11, where the city is fueled by attitude and a fondness for the Mets. By placing Butler in that sandbox, Aronofsky creates a sharp-elbowed crime thriller with a fascinating streak of melancholy. 

——

‘Caught Stealing’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use. Running time: 107 minutes.