Caught Stealing 2025 Parents Guide

Caught Stealing is Rated R by Motion Picture Rating (MPA) for strong violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use.

One of the biggest surprises about Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing is how much fun it is. This is a lean, pulpy crime caper that sidesteps well, mostly the suffocating symbolism and weighty themes that usually dominate the director’s work. Here, we get cat reaction shots and even an animated credits sequence playful touches you’d never expect from the man who made mother! or The Whale. Honestly, if you swapped Aronofsky’s name with Guy Ritchie’s, the whole thing would make more sense given their cinematic reputations. And yet, seeing Aronofsky loosen up is oddly refreshing, especially considering his history of psychodramas like Black Swan, existential fantasies like The Fountain, and bruising character studies like The Wrestler. Another shocker: despite its title and feline fixation, the film doesn’t use Jane’s Addiction’s 1990 track “Been Caught Stealing” let alone a cheeky remix swapping the song’s dog barks for meows. A missed opportunity, maybe, but you can’t have everything.

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Scripted by Charlie Huston from his 2004 novel, the film moves with the scrappy velocity of other grimy urban thrillers. It calls to mind Scorsese’s After Hours and its Safdie brothers descendant Good Time, as well as Ritchie’s Tarantino-inspired early hits like Lock, Stock and RocknRolla. The setup is classic: gangsters, lowlifes, bent cops, and assorted bottom-feeders all circling a stash of money, double-crossing and brutalizing one another in the process. The ensemble cast dives into their rogues’ gallery roles with gusto, each making the most of a scene or two before being chewed up by the plot. And Aronofsky, perhaps for the first time, seems to revel in the pulpy entertainment of it all.

By Aronofsky’s standards, the movie plays almost like lighthearted escapism, even though it’s riddled with beatings, stabbings, and grimy New York squalor. Austin Butler stars as Hank, a former baseball prospect whose career was derailed by a shattered knee. Now, he’s stuck bartending on the Lower East Side (with Griffin Dunne, of After Hours fame, as his boss) and numbing his regrets with booze, phone calls to his baseball-obsessed mother, and the steadying presence of his girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). Hank’s quiet, slightly pathetic existence is upended when his neighbor Russ (Matt Smith), a punk rocker, jets off to London, leaving his cat Bud in Hank’s care.

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From there, the story unfolds like a baseball metaphor come to life underscored by an opening stealing-home sequence. Hank becomes the unlucky man caught in the rundown, battered from both sides as gangsters and crooks close in. Early on, a pair of Russians mistake him for Russ and beat him so savagely he wakes up one kidney short. Unlike the invincible crime antiheroes we often see, Hank is more vulnerable, more human someone who just doesn’t want to be in this mess. His attempt to do the right thing leads him to Detective Roman (Regina King), who warns him about a colorful rogue’s gallery: Colorado (Bad Bunny), a shady club owner, and two Hasidic mobsters played with scary glee by Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Schreiber, who—between bouts of sadism introduce Hank to their Bubbe (Carol Kane) and muse, “Sad world. Broken world.” Everyone, it seems, wants what Russ left behind, and Hank’s survival depends on whether he can keep ahead of the chaos.

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The film doubles as a portrait of late-’90s New York, suspended between its grimy past and Giuliani’s sanitized, law-and-order future. Though the movie feels like a scrappy street-level crime flick, there’s more CGI here than meets the eye yet Aronofsky and longtime collaborators Matthew Libatique (behind the camera) and Andrew Weisblum (in the editing room) keep things kinetic, textured, and sharp enough that it rarely shows. The ‘90s setting gets fleshed out with cultural markers Smash Mouth, Jerry Springer, and the like while Aronofsky doesn’t abandon his taste for bodily unpleasantness: vomit, wounds, clogged toilets, and other bits of grime pepper the frame. Only an indulgent, swooping shot through the Unisphere feels out of place in an otherwise grounded, grimy aesthetic.

As always, Aronofsky gets strong work from his actors. Butler dials down his usual larger-than-life energy no Elvis hip-thrusts here and settles into the role of a regular guy, recessive but magnetic. He sometimes feels emotionally distant, especially in the wake of one major death, but his bond with Bud the cat (played by Tonic, a furry scene-stealer) helps anchor him in something tender and funny. Aronofsky does, inevitably, lean too hard into the theme of accountability, shaping the finale into a symmetrical, full-circle payoff that feels more literary than cinematic. But even when his metaphors get heavy-handed, the movie still pulses with humor, speed, and a kind of anarchic joy a welcome break from the solemnity that usually defines his work.

Caught Stealing 2025 Parents Guide

Violence & Gore: Severe

If you thought Aronofsky had a soft spot for kittens, think again. This film serves up a buffet of brutality that would make The Wrestler look like a Disney Channel special. Characters are beaten, stabbed, and maimed with the kind of enthusiasm you’d expect from a toddler with a new toy. One poor soul even loses a kidney because why not? It’s a veritable smorgasbord of suffering, all wrapped in a gritty New York aesthetic.

Language: Pervasive

The dialogue in this film is as colorful as a sailor’s vocabulary. Expect a constant barrage of profanity that would make a trucker blush. Characters drop F-bombs with the casualness of someone ordering coffee. It’s a veritable symphony of swearing, and if you’re sensitive to such things, consider yourself warned.

Sexual Content & Nudity: Moderate

While the film doesn’t delve into explicit territory, it doesn’t shy away from adult themes. There are suggestive situations and brief nudity that serve as reminders that this is, indeed, an R-rated affair. It’s not Game of Thrones level, but it’s enough to make you raise an eyebrow.

Substance Use/Drugs: Brief

Characters partake in substances with the same casualness as their profanity-laden conversations. There’s brief drug use that serves as a backdrop to the chaos, but it’s not the film’s main focus. Still, it’s there, lurking in the background, adding to the film’s gritty realism.

Final Verdict:

Caught Stealing is not a film for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It’s a relentless, no-holds-barred crime thriller that pulls no punches. If you’re looking for a film with depth, subtlety, or a moral compass, keep looking. But if you’re in the mood for a gritty, profanity-laced rollercoaster ride through the underbelly of New York, this one’s for you.