Caught Stealing

Late 1990s. Former baseball player Hank (Austin Butler) works as a bartender in New York, drinks heavily, and occasionally sleeps with Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). Everything changes when his punk neighbor asks him to look after a cat — because the next day, two Russian gangsters, Lekha and Mikrob (played by Russian actors Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin), show up at his door. Soon after, Hank finds himself visited by all sorts of shady characters — from Jewish mobsters to gambling bookies and corrupt cops.

Unexpectedly (even for himself), Darren Aronofsky has made a crime thriller, a sharp turn from his previous films (“Requiem for a Dream,” “The Whale”). Yet his touch remains — he portrays the protagonist as complex but relatable: a man from a broken family, prone to self-destruction, yet full of raw humanity. Hank is tough and impulsive, but also tender at heart. And Austin Butler’s magnetism keeps the audience glued to every chase he’s caught in.