Caught Stealing is set in 1998 New York, showcasing dingy subway platforms, drab Chinatown apartments, and bygone Lower Manhattan locales. The film shifts the novel's timeline from 2000 to echo earlier cinematic work and to align with Pi. Austin Butler plays a bartender pursued by much of the city's criminal underworld in a mistake-driven plot. The picture summons gritty, pulpy noir energy and frenzied nostalgia while sprinkling period details like the 1998 Mets collapse. The production emphasizes mood and visual style, revealing the limitations of prioritizing atmosphere at the expense of narrative clarity.
The new crime comedy Caught Stealing unfolds in the year 1998, traveling across a distinctly grungy New York City-all dingy subway platforms and drab Chinatown apartments. The time frame differs just slightly from that of the novel it's based on, which is set in 2000. I can think of only one reason the director, Darren Aronofsky, might have decided to make this tweak: The film shares its time and place with his debut feature, Pi, which premiered that same year.
That Caught Stealing echoes the scruffy, anything-goes atmosphere of Aronofsky's earliest work gives it a sense of frenzied nostalgia. But the film itself offers few signs of the times-other than the epic collapse of that year's New York Mets in the playoff race, which is rudely shown in the background. The story is, rather, a timeless tale of mistaken identity: Austin Butler stars as a bartender chased around town by seemingly every member of the city's criminal underworld, for reasons unbeknownst to him.
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