Caught Stealing (2025)

Plot of Caught Stealing: Hank Thompson is a bartender in a low grade New York bar. He drinks too much as a result of trauma caused when he crashed a car, killed his friend and put an end to a promising baseball career. He has an attractive girlfriend, Yvonne, who wants more from their relationship than exciting sex. However, when his punk neighbour, Russ Miner, asks Hank to look after his cat while he returns to Britain to see his ailing father, he finds himself under attack from a variety of villains. The first attack, the reason for which he does not understand, results in him losing a kidney which requires him to stop drinking. He does stop and he regains his athletic capabilities. But when he calls the police a female officer, Roman, turns up and is soon found to be the leader of one of the  groups of villains. Hank finds the reason for the attention is a key to something which he finds, but gets drunk one more time forgetting what he has done with it. In an effort to encourage his memory one of one of the groups kills Yvonne. She had been looking after Bud, the cat, which has been captured by the Russians. Russ returns, but is accidentally injured by Hank, and he eventually dies. In desperation Hank turns to the villainous Hasidic jews, the Drucker brothers but can they be trusted.

Content: Some fairly graphic sex and nudity with (I’m quoting the IMDb parental guidance here) erotic female straddling. Hank is a drunk working in a bar, so a lot of heavy drinking, with the adverse results being evident. There is much physical violence as Hank is beaten up and later tortured by different people. He is interrogated by Roman, who is revealed to be a villain when those who beat up Hank turn up as her assistants. Hank interacts at times with Russ, the punk and accidentally hits him with a baseball bat thinking he is a villain. There are scenes of gunfire when people always die. Bud the cat has a major role and is seen mainly viewing whatever is going on, sometimes apparently with interest. The crash of Hank’s Pontiac Firebird (I think) is shown several times more graphically each time.

A View: While this outing is billed as a black comedy I am not sure about the comedic aspects, since quite a few people die and the beatings and torture are pretty unpleasant. However, I found it really well constructed, telling us as the audience all the stuff we needed to know as it rolled along and showing us how being sober made Hank a viable opponent, despite the increasing threat by the belligerent groups. My wife and I went to see it at our favoured cinema in Madrid. She did not like it much. I liked it a lot. So you should consider our  conflicting views, before going to see it, or not.

Fun Fact:   The director said that he would work with Tonic, the cat, in a second again, over many human actors.