CAUGHT STEALING MOVIE REVIEW

Director/writer Darren Aronofsky is known for making really intense and usually very surreal films, like Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, and Mother!. Sometimes he chills a bit to focus on telling a great character based story like in The Wrestler. Caught Stealing is a bit of an oddball choice for him. While it certainly gets very dark, something to expect with Aronofsky, it’s also quite funny and is largely a ‘guy on the run from everyone’ thriller. Austin Butler is Hank, a NYC bartender drowning his former dreams of being an MLB star in booze. He’s got one good thing going for him: his smart and beautiful girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). When his neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) tells him he has to leave quickly on a trip to England to see his dying father, he asks him to take care of his cat (the real star of the film). Unfortunately for Hank, Russ has gotten on the bad side of some seriously heavy mobsters, and not from just one mob. They want something Russ was hiding and they assume that the clueless Hank can help them find it. What progresses is Hank’s life being torn apart as he finds no safe haven from these deadly gangsters. And when you’ve reached rock bottom and have nothing left to lose, well, that’s where the fun begins in movies like this. We were somewhat split on this one in our review, although everyone was between liked to loved it. Listen to Chris, Wright, Drew, and Marco fight it out on the virtual streets of late 90’s NYC in their review for Caught Stealing.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE/TRAILER

DIRECTED BY: Darren Aronofsky

STARRING: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne, Benito A Martínez Ocasio, Carol Kane, Tenoch Huerta, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Brill, Action Bronson, George Abud, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Nikita Kukushkin, McKinzie J. Scott

 

YOUR REVIEWERS

 



Christopher Lawrence Cox (Founder, Da Boss, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Deliberations of Doom)

Born in the wilds of northern Virginia, Chris managed to put all of his survival skills to use and barely escaped with his life to Austin Texas in 1992 where ever since he’s dabbled in everything from plumber’s assistant to sandwich maker, from band to bar and theater management. An opportunity to see theatrical release films for free by becoming a critic on a local public access show called “The Reel Deal” turned into a full-time job when Chris and his friends decided to take it to the internet. They built the site Spill.com, adding multiple podcasts and animated features, to no small amount of success. During this time, a fortuitous friendship sprung up between Chris and young Brian Salisbury, who was also a local film critic, and they merged their forces of will, and their laundry list of ideas for shows, to eventually build this community of critics. While Brian eventually followed his heart to a new family, Chris continues on with a cast of colorful folks from all over the country (and a few others).

 



Wright Sulek (The Other Boss, Trash in the Can, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, One Man’s Trash, Screener Squad)

Wright hails from the northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas. His passion for filmmaking brought him to Austin to study and make movies. Since then he’s had his hand in acting, writing, and directing his own short films with numerous like-minded film geeks he’s met along his journey.