Crime, New York grime & Austin Butler getting f-ed up (but still looking fine).

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writer: Charlie Huston

Cast: Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Benito Martinez Ocasio

Darren Aronofsky the filmmaker is a great many things, but light-hearted is certainly not one of them. From Pi to Mother! via Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler, for all its qualities, Aronofsky’s filmography has rarely, if ever, ventured outside bleak.

It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to see the director return three years after the decidedly downbeat The Whale with Caught Stealing – a film that looks for all the world like the kind of goofball crime caper you couldn’t see Darren Aronofsky touching with a bargepole. Yet here we are.

Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom forced to quit the game, but everything else is going okay. He’s got a great girl (Zoë Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favourite team is making an underdog run at the pennant. When his punk neighbour Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank is suddenly caught in the middle of a motley crew of gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is, he has no idea why.

As a grungy throwback genre flick with a gnarly energy and a keen sense of boisterous fun, Caught Stealing sees Darren Aronofsky at his most playful and accessible. It’s a movie that feels mainstream in a way few of the filmmaker’s previous efforts ever were. Yet, despite this, Caught Stealing is far from the goofy, knockabout crime comedy it’s being marketed to us as.

Flitting between zany slapstick humour and bleak, frequently shocking violence, Caught Stealing is a fun but often awkward viewing experience that is, for better or worse, nothing like what its trailers want you to believe it is. As it stumbles along full of charm, piss, and vinegar, the whole thing feels like a tonal juggling act, one that frequently feels at risk of dropping the ball, yet somehow always manages to keep things together.

If Caught Stealing’s plot sounds a little conventional and out of place within Aronofsky’s filmography, that’s because it is, and while this is a welcome change of pace from the director’s previous work, something doesn’t quite sit right about the tonal mix. With moments of broad humour uneasily butting up against a gnarly, bleak, blood-splattered crime thriller, Aronofsky feels constantly at war with himself as he attempts to tell a broad, comedic story, yet appears utterly incapable of avoiding the darkness within.

It’s a heady mix of humour and horrifying violence that recalls Fargo-era Coens and Snatch-era Guy Richie, yet there’s something about Caught Stealing that’s distinctly, and somewhat jarringly, Aronofsky. There are moments, sometimes within the same scene, that the film and its director scramble desperately to find their voice. At some points they do, and at others they seem oddly muddled, however, despite this, the results are never less than entertaining.

Part playful Tarantino gangster film, part Cormac McCarthy bloodied bleakness, Caught Stealing is a throwback crime flick in the best way possible. It’s a down-and-dirty tale of a likeable but clueless everyman dragged into a city’s criminal underbelly against his will, and one with grit and grime firmly embedded under its nails.

At points feeling like it’s been scraped up from a New York alleyway floor, there’s a distinct scruffiness and grunginess to what Caught Stealing is doing, and the rough-around-the-edges energy is readily apparent in the film’s plot. With frequent leaps in logic and a distinctly uneven narrative, Aronofsky’s film is erratic and highly volatile, however, while that often makes for a rather awkward watch, it never loses its energy or ability to enthral.

Stumbling back and forth across late-90s New York City, it may sound like a cliche, yet Caught Stealing’s location really is a character in and of itself, and a pretty major one at that. The location is a vital part of building Caught Stealing’s energy and atmosphere, feeling, as it does, like a roughly administered colonoscopy of Giuliani-era New York, with the pungent cocktail of dirt, booze, piss, and puke hanging in the air (compliment) doing a cracking job of making us feel every one of the five boroughs in our very core.

Throwing himself face-first into this grime-encrusted world, Austin Butler very much leads from the front, as he once again proves beyond any doubt that he possesses some real leading man juice. From Elvis to The Bikeriders to Dune: Part Two, it’s been a stellar few years for Butler, and his role here really solidifies what we’ve all suspected for a while now – that he has everything it takes to be a bona fide star, as he wholeheartedly embraces the responsibility, all while being a complete and utter mess.

Bloodied, bruised, and spending a good portion of the film’s runtime in an inebriated, piss-stained, vomit-covered state, this is a role that demands a lot, yet Butler comes out swinging and more than willing to get absolutely pulverised by both himself and everyone else around him for the best part of two hours. However, despite the rough treatment he receives throughout, Butler somehow carries with him the effortless, laid-back charm and unquantifiable confidence of a young Brad Pitt, something that manages to hold the screen in his grip and pull Caught Stealing through even its roughest moments.

As support, the ensemble around Butler is smart, compact, and immensely fun, yet somewhat inconsistently deployed in parts. Covered in studded leather and chewing the scenery with a ridiculously broad cockney accent, Matt Smith is a riot and works well as a double act with Butler, while the likes of Bad Bunny (credited here under his real name, Benito Martínez Ocasio), Liev Schreiber, and Vincent D’Onofrio (both of whom are genuine scene-stealers) are an assortment of unhinged oddball criminals who pop up here and there to knock seven shades of shit out of poor Hank.

Where things fall down with the cast, however, is just how little purchase its female members get from things. Both Zoë Kravitz and Regina King start off promisingly, yet it’s not long before they’re done dirty by a script that doesn’t feel like it has time for them; with the former, in particular, undermined hugely as she feels like little more than a thinly constructed love interest and some cliched emotional motivation for Butler’s Hank.

It’s a real shame and not the first time that Darren Aronofsky has struggled with his female characters, but Kravitz and King are immense talents that deserve far more than the hand they’re dealt here. The very fact that both are overshadowed throughout by a cat named Tonic tells you all you need to know.

While it’s certainly rough around the edges, Caught Stealing is nonetheless a cracking watch (in more ways than one). Stumbling between goofy humour and shocking violence, it’s a fun, if frequently awkward, down-and-dirty crime flick and undoubtedly Aronofsky’s most outright accessible film to date. It also offers conclusive proof that Austin Butler has some serious leading man juice about him, all while demonstrating an admirable willingness to get thoroughly fucked up by both himself and everyone else around him.

Caught Stealing is in cinemas now.