From the twisted prestige maker of “Black Swan” and “mother!” comes a crime caper with equal punchlines and bloodshed.
Disney product-turned-Tarantino and Ari Aster-approved Austin Butler plays a former baseball prodigy who never blossomed due to a traumatizing mistake he can’t shake, in dreams and in general.
The dirty water dog-bathed slums of late 1990s Brooklyn serve as Butler’s waystation ‘till oblivion stomping grounds. Asked one day to cat-sit for his London Town-bound punk neighbor, hijinks subsequently ensue when he’s embroiled in drug warfare to the tune of a $4 million score.
Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio linger then pounce loud as downright evil Hassidics who ironically honor more Shabbos-enforced etiquette than you’d expect from a pair of cold-blooded murderers. Bad Bunny also pops up as one of the ranking members of another gang of unruly hooligans committed to making Butler’s life Hell on Earth.
Zoë Kravitz establishes early kinetics and connectivity as the on-screen paramedic mate of the bartending Butler, who, after garnering an Oscar nomination for losing himself, accent and all, as “Elvis,” reins in a more grounded, feet-planted-on-real-ground performance.
He’s nevertheless captivating here, Aronofsky deploying his recurring director of photography Matthew Libatique to mimic frame schematics found in Safdie Brothers films such as “Good Time” or “Uncut Gems.”
Chasing stakes with arousing, air-supplying irreverence sends Aronofsky into a Scorseseian level of directorial maturity given his career arc, where he doesn’t have to exclusively shock and awe; you can run narratively wild without going too big or weird, “Caught Stealing” confirms. Moreover, he’s clearly having just as much of a ball as he ever has, running a self-assured, tonal balancing act.
Meanwhile, as the seasoned veteran Aronofsky took a healthy dose of preparatory hacks from the on-deck circle, author Charlie Huston cracked the adaptation of his same-named novel out of the park with Stantonian aplomb, thereby teeing up his teammate to experience much of the same fortune result-wise when it was his turn to bat.
So what if the four-bagger may not have traveled as far as Huston’s, or even Aronofsky’s own previous work? In baseball, in film, and in life—a homer is a homer.
As much as he with the devastation and drug-infused “Requiem for a Dream” and budgetarily revolutionized the high-impact, existential sci-fi subgenre with “The Fountain,” sometimes the masses just want to go to the movies and catch a quality flick.
He’s directed the likes of Ellen Burstyn, Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Natalie Portman and Brendan Fraser—to Academy Award nominations, with the latter-most winning for the stageplay-adapted “The Whale.”
Oscars probably won’t be won for this one, but before a repeat viewing—and you best believe there will be several—it just might be my favorite Aronofsky yet. Something about an auteur sending off the surroundings that colored their youth has me hooked, line and sinker when it’s pulled off with true romance and unbridled interrogation.
It’s a shame we may never get to see a Superman movie from the same mind that thought up “Pi” and big-screen realized “Noah.” We were actually pretty close to getting a Wolverine vehicle by his cinematic claws once upon a time. Alas, this is no superhero movie—though a fun ending and credits sequence may suggest otherwise.
Rather, it’s super-entertaining popcorn fodder that had this Yankee fan disappointed when the Mets’ former Shea Stadium headquarters was teased but not recreated in large.
Before I go: did anyone else split-second think that was Sandy Koufax comparing Batting Cage Butler to Gil Hodges? I’ll hang up and listen.