At first glance, the optics of Caught Stealing, Darren Aronofsky’s screwball crime thriller, seem far removed from the darkly provocative and psychologically intense character studies that have defined his first eight features. The auteur has always been an agitator of human obsessions, extreme ambitions, and feral self-annihilation, and his protagonists rarely operate in moderation. Nina’s descent into madness in Black Swan, Sara Goldfarb’s pill-fueled unraveling in Requiem for a Dream, and Charlie’s sedentary, suffocating grief in The Whale are all examples of Aronofsky’s fascination with the extremes of human behavior and the bodies that confine, trap, and betray our intentions. 

The next recipient of that behavioral and bodily harm is Hank (Austin Butler), a washed-up ex-baseball player turned late-night shift dive bartender. His bartending duties are often indistinguishable from going drink-for-drink with his eclectic patrons, and his excessive vices are evident from the start. Unlike Aronofsky’s past characters, Hank’s whiskey-soaked self-destruction at least looks like a recklessly good time by comparison.

That illusion doesn’t last long. When Hank’s scheming punk neighbor, Russ, a gloriously mental Matt Smith with as impressive a mohawk as you’ll ever find, skips town for London, he leaves more than just his cat Bud in Hank’s care. Almost immediately, a domino effect of danger begins. After a crew of vaguely Eastern European mobsters storms into Hank’s life, leaving him with a ruptured kidney, his unlabeled partner of the night, played by the suave, sexy, and woefully underutilized Zoë Kravitz, is quick to point out that this injury has particularly dire implications given his hard-drinking lifestyle.

From there, the film explodes into a riotous, high-octane chain reaction of violence and collateral damage. Death comes suddenly and often, and Aronofsky offers little by way of narrative safety nets. Supporting characters enter and exit in a haze of blood, booze, and bad luck, but that relentlessness is part of its electric charm. What makes Caught Stealing such a fascinating pivot for Aronofsky, however, is how he reframes his recurring themes. 

He rarely spares his characters, and by extension his audience, from deeply felt pain and grief, instead inviting us to inhabit those heightened states of mind alongside them. Hank, like many of the director’s past protagonists, is driven by self-destructive impulses. But here, his downfall is as much circumstantial as it is self-inflicted. He isn’t only consumed by obsession or guilt (and trust he has plenty of both). He’s also trapped in a storm of coincidence and bad luck. The result is a film that revels in its delirious messiness, a chaotic portrait of a man caught between moral consequence and dumb chance with no facilities for getting himself out of the cycle.

The film’s swagger owes much to both longtime DP Matthew Libatique’s dynamic camera and Butler’s inherent charisma. He imbues Hank with just enough volatile magnetism to make his poor decisions compelling rather than alienating. Armed with the physical sculpture of a serious athlete who could play real ball despite the tongue and cheek interrogations of Detective Roman (a tonally muddled Regina King), and, at times, all 34 inches of his weapon of choice (double entendre very much intended), Butler anchors the film even as its narrative veers wildly from one bloody set piece to the next.  smoothing out the rollercoaster ride of tonal shifts and narrative swings for the fences.

Aronofsky also grounds the chaos in a richly textured portrait of 1990s New York. If Spike Lee chronicled the highs and lows of the city from Brooklyn to the Bronx earlier this summer, Aronofsky zeroes in on the grit of the 90’s Lower East Side. His camera absorbs landmarks like Kim’s Video store, anti-Rudy Giuliani graffiti, and the grimy corners of a city teetering on the edge of collapse. The setting feels less like a backdrop than a living, breathing accomplice in Hank’s downfall. While baseball is never quite necessary for the narrative momentum, it’s undoubtedly a cultural touchstone for New York City that catapults the story into a deliciously climactic subway scene at Shea Stadium (long-time Mets fans will appreciate the spotlight). 

Caught Stealing is simultaneously a dark character study and a deliriously entertaining powder keg, balancing the moral consequence of a typical Aronofsky protagonist with the ruthless violence of an exercise in genre. For a director long associated with suffocating intensity, Caught Stealing proves that Aronofsky can cut loose without abandoning the themes that define him. The result is a cinematic experience that is sweaty, silly, and endlessly alive, and I had a blast for nearly all nine innings. Go Giants!

Review Courtesy of Danny Jarabek

Feature Image Credit to Sony Pictures via IMDb