The first thing we can see in “Caught Stealing” are the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, enthroned above the New York Skyline. Later in the background, a episode of “Jerry Springer Live” runs on a tube TV, in which a calculated brawl breaks off-this time because the riot talker has invited some fully costumed Ku-Klux-Klan members to the show. Yes, we are definitely in the nineties, even the granulence of the analogous images is modeled on this era. Although Darren Aronofsky has established himself as a director with his first films such as “Pi” or “Requiem for a Dream” even in this wedding of the indie cinema …
… However, “Caught Stealing” is much more reminiscent of the early works by Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) and Guy Ritchie (“Bube, Dame, König, Gras”). Comes the film adaptation of the one published in 2004 Novel*, the Charlie Huston with “Six Bad Things“* and “A dangerous man“* Already continued twice, i.e. a quarter of a century too late? No, because such an established director as Aronofsky (” Black Swan “,” The Whale “) naturally brings his very own manuscript-and this is the main thing in the fact that between all the black-and-humorous gangsters, the whole painful despair of the supposedly powerless protagonist shines through at all times.
Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) falls back on his experience as a near-based baseball professional, but is still brutal.
As a high school student, Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was once before a career as a baseball professional, but then a self-inflicted car accident smashed his knee. In the meantime, he is in the New York in 1998 as a bartender. It can already be seen from the fact that his workplace is rather dodgy is that he sometimes has to accept envelopes and push through the postal slot of a steel door in the basement. His only ray of hope: his relationship with the ambulance driver Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz).
The actual descent for Hank, however, begins when his neighbor Russ (Matt Smith), a drug dealer with an Iroquy cut, asks him to take care of his cat in his absence. Because only a little later there are two Russian mafiosi in the stairwell and mercilessly meet the surprised Hank. Apparently it has come between the fronts of different gangster groups without his own intervention. Because even the Jewish Orthodox Killer brothers Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and SHMully (Vincent d'Unofrio) are suddenly after him-just like the nefarious order killer Colorado (Bad Bunny) …
Even the kidney is just the beginning
The British punk Russ, who gets the whole mess, but loves his hangover; The Russian, henchman Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin), who is like a wild terrier; The guest appearance of Latin-Rap superstar Bad Bunny, at whose fake beard the mask images have probably bordered; The brothers Lipa and Smully, who pay attention to the Sabbath with fedora and temporal lakes, but still consider the most nefarious monster manhattan: If you ask chatt to only advise you on the basis of this description of the figure, from which director the associated film comes from, the following trio comes out:
- Guy Ritchie
- Quentin Tarantino
- Martin McDonagh
The sometimes extreme tips of violence and the often raven -black humor also go perfectly with the regional names mentioned. But even when you first confront the Russian mafia in the stairwell, you can feel that Darren Aronofsky is striving for a noticeably different pitch: If Pavel occurs again and again on the defenseless hank, then at some point everything falls off from the scene-and it just hurts! No wonder that Hank has to be removed directly. And even otherwise there are figures where you would bet that they are still experiencing the credits, not to be divided safely, briefly and flush.
In addition to the tips of the violence, also in “Caught Stealing”: Very hot people have very hot sex!
“Caught Stealing” is therefore based on its obvious role models. But in contrast to “Pulp Fiction” & Co., where violence is often dismissed with a dry punch line (“Oh man, I shot Marvin on the face!”), She actually has noticeable consequences here.
Despite Austin Butler's launched washbar, Hank is not a cool (anti-) hero who all plays against each other from the start, but increasingly a driven person who has long since grown over the head and who no longer comes after the consequences of the storming events. This gives the ever faster swirling piral of the superstylically filmed “Caught Stealing” an unintraisable suction, even if some Twist announces quite clearly and does not always look 100 percent credible.
Conclusion: If “Caught Stealing” had actually been published in 1998, one would probably call it in a row with some of the indie classics of this era-especially from Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. A quarter of a century later, he will not leave a comparable impression, but still Darren Aronofsky does not simply provide a clumsy nineties nineties revival, but pushes up its very own, often tragic-painful stamp.