'Caught Stealing' review: Austin Butler stars in fast-paced comedy-thriller with edge

The time is 1998 and the place is the Lower East Side — and if you remember it, or even just wistfully read about it, you’ll love "Caught Stealing." With its subway-tile opening credits and recreation of long-gone haunts like Kim’s Video and Benny’s Burritos (all right, more like the East Village), "Caught Stealing" is a love-letter to the last moment when New York was still gritty, cheap and full of possibility. Before, as one character says bitterly, "increased policing, fancy restaurants, gentrification."

Austin Butler plays Hank Thompson, a former high school baseball prodigy and now one of the area’s many likable dead-enders. At night he pours at Paul’s Bar (lovingly modeled on the infamously grubby Mars Bar) and in the mornings he unwinds with his paramedic girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). After agreeing to cat-sit for his neighbor Russ (a cartoon British punk played by Matt Smith, of "Doctor Who" fame), Hank is inexplicably beaten so badly by mobsters that he wakes up missing his appendix.

That sets the tone for "Caught Stealing" — romantic hipsterism, whimsical plot twists and ugly violence with real consequences. Director Darren Aronofsky is better known for brooding philosophical fare ("Pi," "Noah," "The Whale") than for action comedies, which perhaps explains why "Caught Stealing" occasionally veers into darkness. The characters range from the hard-boiled (Roman, a steely cop played by Regina King) to the delightfully bizarre, including the Scarface wannabe Colorado (Bad Bunny), a Russian bruiser named Microbe who speaks only in American catchphrases ("You want fries with that?") and two ultraviolent Hasidim (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio) known as the Scary Monsters. But even the likable folks tend to die horribly, which gives "Caught Stealing" an edgy unpredictability. (Charlie Huston wrote the screenplay from his novel.)

Any similarities to Martin Scorsese’s "After Hours," another frog-in-hot-water comedy, are intentional. (As an homage, its star, Griffin Dunne, plays the coke-snorting owner of Paul’s Bar.) There’s also some resemblance to John Landis’ caper comedy "Into the Night" (1985) and, of course, "The Big Lebowski." But Aronofsky is playing much rougher than the Coen Brothers, and his hero isn’t made of Teflon like the Dude. Butler’s Hank is boyish and vulnerable; we really fear he might not make it.

With its post-grunge setting, punk-rock soundtrack (by British cult heroes Idles) and slightly grainy cinematography by Matthew Libatique, "Caught Stealing" is a stylish pop noir with a mean streak. Maybe the highest praise is that it really could have been made in the 1990s.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com