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4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS

Austin Butler stars as Hank Thompson, an East Village bartender who’s on the run with his neighbor’s cat Bud, from Russian gangsters, partnered with a gun-crazed Puerto Rican and a tough NYPD detective.

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4K screenshots courtesy of Sony Pictures - Click the jacket for an Amazon purchase

“CAUGHT STEALING”

4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 2025; R for strong violent content, pervasive profanity, some sexuality/nudity, and brief drug use; Digital copy via Movies Anywhere, connected to Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), DirecTV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Verizon Fios TV (4K), Xfinity (4K)

Best extra: “Aronofsky: The Real Deal” featurette

DARREN ARONOFSKY (“Black Swan,” “Requiem,” “Pi”) takes audiences in an uncharacteristic direction with his latest outing. Granted, “Caught Stealing” has plenty of graphic violence, scary characters, and gritty, grimy New York City scenarios that recall other Aronofsky fare. But it’s also a dark comedy and, ultimately, a decidedly feel-good movie.

Austin Butler (“Elvis”) stars as Hank Thompson, a former high school baseball star in his California hometown, who was sidelined by injuries from a horrific accident and is still plagued with guilt by its memory. He lives in Manhattan’s East Village now, (now being the late 1990s) tends bar, spends time with his EMT girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), phones his mom every day and roots, along with her, for the San Francisco Giants.

One night, Russ (Matt Smith), an Englishman with a towering mohawk hairdo who lives in the apartment next door, ambushes Hank as he returns home from work. Russ needs Hank to watch Bud (his bitey Main Coon cat) because Russ’ father has had a stroke and Russ must fly to London. However, by reluctantly agreeing to cat-sit, Hank opens the door to a hornet’s nest of trouble, because Russ owes money to gangsters – Russian ones. The Russians (Nikita Kukushkin, Yuri Kolokolnikov) and their Puerto Rican partner (Bad Bunny) owe that money to a couple of vicious Hasidic brothers (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio). Add to that motley mixture a tough police detective (Regina King), and you have a recipe for absolute mayhem, both gruesomely violent and hilariously funny.

(1) The title is cleverly written in mosaic tile, to look like it's a New York City subway stop. (2) After a late night at the bar, Hank and his girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) have a quiet moment before heading to his apartment. (3) Hank’s next-door neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), wants him to watch his cat, Bud, while he attends to his very ill father in London. (4) Russian mobsters Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin) and Aleksei (Yuri Kolokolnikov) are looking for Russ and severely beat up Hank. (5&6) Bud (Tonic) looks at Hank, who is barely conscious, and later finds himself in the hospital.

One of the funniest scenes involves the Hasidim having to take Hank, whom they’ve abducted, to a Sabbath dinner at their grandma’s house. Carol Kane contributes a delightful cameo as the babushka-sporting bubbe, who believes that Hank is half-Jewish and cheerily treats him to his first taste of matzoh ball soup.

“Caught Stealing” is based on a novel by Charlie Huston, who also wrote the screenplay. Aronofsky makes the most of it, delivering an entertainingly wild ride, bolstered by great performances from every performer, right down to the pretty kitty (played by a feline named Tonic). Be sure to watch the beginning of the end credits, to catch the surprise cameo as Hank’s mother.

VIDEO

Longtime collaborator Matthew Libatique, who grew up in Queens, captures the grit and texture of NYC, using Sony Venice 8.6K and DJI Ronin 8K digital cameras. Everything was mastered in TRUE 4K, with a heavy dose of post-production film grain. The clarity is also top-notch, slightly dialed back for an organic feel, much like Aronofsky’s earlier films “Black Swan” and “The Wrestler,” which were actually captured on film stock.

THE HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading is very good, with solid black levels during the night scenes and controlled highlights from the Coney Island beach in a chase at the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, with the neutral color palette.

AUDIO

The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is heart-pounding with its punk/rock sound and heavy percussion bass response. Also, the height speakers are quite active, from environmental effects to bomb blasts and gunfights.

The centered dialogue never gets lost within the music tunes from the hard-edge U.K. band Idles. They provided five new songs and a cover of the Clash’s version of “Police and Thieves.” Aronofsky told Rolling Stone, “The movie needed a house band.” They ended up playing all of composer Rob Simonsen’s score. “The idea was that the Idles would be the orchestra,” Simonsen says.

(1-3) Comfortably at home wearing his favorite baseball cap, Hank rests after leaving the hospital early. Then quickly finds himself on the run from the Russian bad guys, who are looking for a key that Russ may have given him. (4) Hank finally calls the NYPD about his attack. Detective Roman (Regina King) is on the case. (5) Hank ends up at his bar and starts drinking alcohol, even though he has strict orders from the doctors to avoid alcohol.

EXTRAS

The bonus features leave a bit to be desired, composed of four very brief promotional featurettes, including one on casting, another on Butler doing his own stunts, and another on recreating New York City in the ’90s.

• “Casting Criminals, Chaos, and a Cat” (7 mins.) Interviews with the cast and crew.

  
  

• “New York Story” (3 mins) is a short visual love letter to NYC.

  
  

• “I Don’t Drive” (3 mins.), a brief look at Butler, who did the majority of his own stunts.

  
  

• “Aronofsky: The Real Deal” (6 mins.), the meatiest of the lot, contains interviews with members of the cast and crew. Aronofsky says he “wanted to make something very different, that would be, first and foremost, fun.” He had read Charlie Huston’s book and especially liked the fact that the story was set in the East Village.

  
  

Aronofsky grew up in Brooklyn, but says he spent a lot of time in that Manhattan neighborhood. Various cast members lavish praise on Aronofsky for the joy he exhibited during the production, for stepping out of his comfort zone, and for being wonderful to work with. Huston notes that he and Aronofsky are contemporaries who had both lived in the East Village during the 1990s. The film was shot “six blocks from where I lived,” Huston adds.

Aronofsky remembers that living in the “East Village in the ’90s … (gave him) the feeling that everything was possible.” For this “period piece,” the director says he found “casting a huge challenge.” Also challenging, he adds, was figuring out how to “make sequences energetic and exciting. Times are tough right now, so I wanted to entertain.”

— Peggy Earle

(1-3) The Russian mob and their partner Benito Martínez Ocasio, aka Colorado (Bad Bunny), find Hank again, and kidnap, torture, and threaten him. Hank escapes - again. (4) He ends up at the bar, where he thinks he gave the “Key” to the owner, Paul (Griffin Dunne), and the bad guys threaten him.

SPECS

• 100 GB disc

• TRUE 4K mastering

• Captured on Sony Venice 8.6K and DJI Ronin 8K digital cameras (1.85:1 aspect ratio).

• Video bitrate: 79 Megabits per second average

• HDR10 maximum light level: 1093 nits

• Max frame average light level: 169 nits

• Box office: A disappointing $19 million domestically and $33 million worldwide, with a production budget of around $40 million.

• Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 79 percent, Moviegoers 83 percent

• Metacritic: Critics 65 percent, User score 6.7

(1-3) Surprise! Russ returns from London. After admitting he's a drug dealer, he reveals the millions he took from the Russians. Hank and Russ try to decide what to do as the Russian and Hasidic mobs give chase. (4) Russ’ car dies near the New York Mets’ Shea Stadium, and the two escape into the crowd and board the subway. Russ succumbs to his injuries, leaving Hank and Bud wondering what to do next. (5) Hank and Bud spend the night on Coney Island beach. (6) The Hasidic brother Lipa (Liev Schreiber) abducts Hank and brings him to a Sabbath dinner at their grandma’s house. (7) Detective Roman aims at Hank. (8&9) Hank and Bud are still against the world.