Did I just watch the American version of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? Anyway.. I fucking loved it!

7/10. Slick cinematography, great cast, and I can’t believe it took me half the movie to realize that was Vincent D’Onofrio as Shmully.

Darren Aronofsky is at his strongest when exploring serious, psychological themes. Caught Stealing finds him attempting a Guy Ritchie impression. While the vibe and style are strong, the humor often feels misplaced. This tonal misstep is saved by a commanding performance by Austin Butler and great music throughout.

The fuck are you doing Aronofsky? Why are you making American direct-to-stream chase movies with cartoon characters? Why are all the baddies lines mixed language bullshit that twelve year olds think sounds cool? Is the protagonist supposed to be a charming lovable idiot? Why is exactly everything in this movie annoying? Is it some kind of adolescent fantasy satire that I'm missing? Or did you watch Snatch and decide to rip it off but substitute the British wit with New York grit? Except it's not gritty, it's not much of a chase, the twists are all telegraphed and foreshadowed and laid out obvious, not a single character is convincing, the multi ethnic gangster expose is unoriginal and cringe and [spoiler]why the fuck does he not just call the FBI?[/spoiler]

It has a lot of really great pieces, but they just don't work well together. Most of the moves are forecasted pretty loudly, but theyre not remotely as clever as the characters presentation and atmosphere. If I rated a movie solely based on the acting, character premise, and cinematography, this would be a 9. The plot just clogs it up needlessly with obviously bad decisions. It would have been improved greatly by streamlining and justifying many of the stupid decisions made by characters through their established character flaws.