Caught Stealing (2025)
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2025-09 to 2026-08
A former baseball player-turned-bartender becomes entangled in a dangerous web of organized crime after a simple favor for a neighbor goes wrong.
The story
In 1998, Hank, a bartender on the Lower East Side struggling with alcohol addiction, agrees to pet-sit for his neighbor, Russ. When two Russian mobsters arrive looking for Russ, Hank is severely beaten and hospitalized. Following the intrusion, a narcotics detective reveals that Russ is a drug dealer connected to a dangerous organization. Hank discovers a hidden key in the cat's litter box and becomes a central figure in a tense standoff involving the mob, the police, and a high-stakes search for a hidden stash of money.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In 1998, Hank, a former baseball player turned bartender, is pet-sitting for his neighbor Russ. After being beaten by Russian mobsters seeking Russ, Hank finds a key in the cat's litter box. He works with Detective Elise Roman, who reveals Russ's ties to the Drucker brothers. After a series of violent encounters at a local bar, Hank finds himself in a desperate game of cat-and-mouse with the Russians and the police. He eventually discovers that the key unlocks a storage unit containing $4 million. After a chaotic sequence of events involving the death of several characters and a betrayal by Roman, Hank manages to secure the key and the money. In the final act, after a tense standoff at a club, Hank realizes the truth about the murder of his girlfriend. He intentionally crashes a car, killing the Drucker brothers, and eventually escapes to Tulum, posing as Russ and sending half the money to his mother.
- First release year
- 2025
- Runtime (minutes)
- 107
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Darren Aronofsky
- Writers
- Charlie Huston · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Austin Butler · Hank "Hank" Thompson; Regina King; Zoë Kravitz; Matt Smith; Liev Schreiber; Vincent D'Onofrio; Benito Martínez Ocasio; Griffin Dunne; Carol Kane
- Genres
- black comedy; crime thriller
- Themes
- addiction; organized crime; betrayal
- Tone and mood
- black comedy; tense
- Premise and plot tags
- crime; underworld; survival
- Source material / true-story basis
- 2004 novel of the same name by Charlie Huston
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics and was considered a box office bomb despite its critical standing.
- Reported review scores
- Metacritic · score: 65 · scale: 100 · review count: 47; CinemaScore · score: B · scale: A+ to F
- Production trivia
- The film premiered in Puerto Rico to promote the island.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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