Metacritic reviews

For most crime capers, shooting is funny but killing isn’t; the always-divisive Aronofsky obliterates the line between comedy and realism, and the result is a farce that’s both literally and figuratively explosive

Caught Stealing might feel like a break from the “Pi” director’s intensely subjective character portraits, which range from “The Wrestler” to “The Whale,” but in fact, Aronofsky brings us as close to Hank as he has to any of his characters.

Caught Stealing is a very enjoyable spectacle.

Caught Stealing, on the surface, doesn’t look like what we expect from an Aronofsky film, and yet, once you dive deeper, it seems like the most obvious version of a dramedy crime-thriller that the director could make. The film isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty and go to some truly dark places, yet it always manages to come back to a place where this story becomes entertaining again.

While some of Aronofsky’s auteurist stamp gets lost restaging some of Gotham’s greatest cinematic hits, Caught Stealing hardly feels like director-for-hire work.

It’s remarkable, then, how well Caught Stealing holds together as entertainment; as much as Aronofsky seems incapable of the modulation needed to make a crime caper, he’s also a big part of why this particular variation works anyway.

Caught Stealing is a refreshing addition to Aronofsky’s filmography. It’s deliberately funny and macabre, but it asks us to take it seriously.

The story’s boilerplate setup gets a noticeable lift thanks to Darren Aronofsky’s style and focus.

Like all the director’s films, it never allows a boring shot when an unusual one is possible. It has compelling momentum. It features charismatic actors. What a shame it is so tonally chaotic.

For all the texture of the film, which was shot in and around a New York City vibrantly retrofitted to the story’s 1998-set specifications (costumes, music, locations, the whole kit), the hammy way important beats and plot points are served up feels out of step. It doesn’t pop, at least until the film’s final act, which finally brings together Aronofsky’s disparate parts and shows an inkling of what the filmmaker was attempting to capture.