Darren Aronofsky has come full circle in a way, with his latest film, Caught Stealing, taking place in 1998, the year his debut feature Pi came out. With the movie set for an August 29th release, the first reactions have hit social media. So how does Aronofsky’s latest stack up? Check out some of the initial reviews – including our own – below.
By and large, much praise is being heaped on lead Austin Butler, who is fresh off of Ari Aster’s Eddington. Considering Butler has been on an absolute roll and Aronofsky’s last film, The Whale, nabbed Brendan Fraser a Best Actor Oscar (beating out Butler for Elvis), Butler could be an early favorite to be nominated in the category.
However, these reviews aren’t a full-on representation of the initial reactions to Caught Stealing, which is dividing audiences in a way that doesn’t indicate that it’s awful but just isn’t doing it in a way they hoped.
While there are still plenty of reactions still to come, Caught Stealing is faring quite nicely on Letterboxd as well, with the movie seeing more than a third of viewers ranking it at four stars as of publication.
Here is the official plot of Caught Stealing, as per Sony: “Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom who can’t play anymore, but everything else is going okay. He’s got a great girl (Zoë Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favorite team is making an underdog run at the pennant. When his punk-rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is he has no idea why. As Hank attempts to evade their ever-tightening grip, he’s got to use all his hustle to stay alive long enough to find out…”
In addition to Butler, Kravitz and Smith, Caught Stealing also stars Regina King, Vincent D’Onofrio, Liev Schreiber, Bad Bunny, and Griffin Dunne.
What do you make of the first reactions to Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing? Will you be checking it out later this month?
