Caught Stealing - The 'Movie Star' Problem

Caught Stealing, while being nowhere near Aronofsky's best, still very much stacks up to his other work. While this movie may fly slightly under the radar, it deserves any bit of recognition it may get. One thing that I thought elevated this movie to a much higher degree is the way that Aronofsky is able to know what the audience is expecting when entering and completely flipping that. The biggest detail with this is the concept of a 'movie star'.

When you see this movie's trailers, posters, or even cast list, you immediately assume who is going to survive just by pointing out the names you recognise. Of course this movie has an absolutely stacked cast, but you see people like Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, and Bad Bunny all over the trailers and assume they're easily going to make it out alive. This is due to the rise of the 'movie star'. Why would such a big name actor bother to take the time to be in a movie if they're going to die so early on?

A recent, and very potent, example of this phenomenon is Jurassic World: Rebirth from earlier this year. Scarlet Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey all manage to survive until the credits roll, even when it seems impossible. So when you watch a movie like Caught Stealing, you assume the same will be true. Coming to find out a lot of big names don't even make it out of the first hour, you develop a sense of uneasiness and worry for some other characters. At first you felt safe in your assumption that Austin Butler and the rest of the main cast will surely have some sort of plot armour, seeing Zoë Kravitz' body on the floor with a bullet wound in her head, you immediately lose that assumption and realise that nobody is safe. Of course, Austin Butler does end up surviving until the very end, but that thought in your head is enough to elevate this movie's tension so much more.

The main thing I was worried about with this movie was that they wouldn't be able to juggle all these different characters without sidelining a few, especially with the 100 minute runtime. I would say this is done well in some places, however there are a few parts that slip up. In terms of screen time, this is balanced incredibly well. I didn't come out of the cinema thinking that anybody was underutilised or deserved more or less spotlight. 

However, it did feel like a lot of characters weren't given much development and were minimised to one key characteristic. The Jews were stereotypically Jewish, the Russians were angry and aggressive, and Colorado was using a calm mask to hide his aggression. The saving grace of this was Matt Smith, as he felt like the most developed character, both for the story and just his general backstory. It even seemed, at times, that he was more interesting than our actual main character.

Of course, this being a Darren Aronofsky picture, of course this had some incredible cinematography and even better writing - aside from character development. He's able to direct a scene so concise and real, yet so easy to understand. Of course, this is also attributed greatly to Charlie Huston. While the cinematography can be slightly understated at times, there's moments - like Hank running from the Jews - where it really shines through.

Finally, Caught Stealing may not be Aronofsky's best, possibly even his worst, but that doesn't mean it's not still incredible. With such a complex story of trauma and deception, its bound to be so difficult to write and direct, but I believe it was done amazingly and this will go down as one of 2025's most under appreciated movies.