The former Elvis Presley teams up with cult director Darren Aronofsky for this ’90s-set crime caper
We may never watch Requiem for a Dream again as long as we live, but we’re still keen to check out whatever director Darren Aronofsky cooks up. And it seems the director of The Whale has been in the kitchen with Elvis and The Bike Riders star Austin Butler to plate up this twisty-looking crime comedy.
Caught Stealing Trailer
What’s the plot?
Based on the novel of the same name by Charlie Huston, author of the vampire noir series The Joe Pitt Casebooks, Caught Stealing sees Butler as former baseball player Hank Thompson. Now a bartender, things are looking good for Hank with love interest Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) when his punk mate Russ (Matt Smith, and there’s a lot going on there) asks him to mind his cat. For reasons that remain unclear, this results in our hero Hank being menaced by skinheads, Hassidic gangsters, and all manner of of weirdos between those two ideological poles. There was a time when we would have called this sort of thing post-Tarantino. That time was the ’90s, and it’s when this thing is set. I feel old.
Who’s in it?
- Austin Butler is Henry “Hank” Thompson
- Regina King is Roman
- Zoë Kravitz is Yvonne
- Matt Smith, sporting a wild mohawk, is Russ
- Liev Schreiber is Lipa
- Vincent D’Onofrio is Shmully
- Griffin Dunne is Paul
- Benito A Martínez Ocasio is Colorado
- D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai is Dale
- Will Brill is Jason
- George Abud is Duane
…plus Carol Kane, Action Bronson, and Yuri Kolokolnikov in undisclosed roles. Kane apparently only speaks Yiddish in this.
When’s it out?
Caught Stealing hits Australian cinemas on August 28, 2025.
What’s the vibe?
Pretty good! Aronofsky’s a pretty dexterous filmmaker, but he tends to hang out at the dark end of the street. It’ll be fun to see him tackle something that feels a bit lighter than, I dunno, The Wrestler. There’s a bit of an Inherent Vice mood, specifically the Paul Thomas Anderson adaptation, but it’s a coke high rather than a weed high. All else aside, Matt Smith’s spectacular mohawk deserves an IMAX screen all by itself.
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