When an average Joe accidentally finds himself thrust into the center of a criminal enterprise—that’s cinema, baby. Much like in real life, everybody wants something from Austin Butler in the Caught Stealing trailer. But like many of the other innocent protagonists on the run throughout film history (Cary Grant in North By Northwest, Harrison Ford in The Fugitive), it looks like Butler’s character Hank is going to rise to the occasion. In fact, this criminal mix-up might be just what he needs to find purpose in his life.
“Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom who can’t play anymore, but everything else is going okay. He’s got a great girl (Zoë Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favorite team is making an underdog run at the pennant,” a synopsis from Sony Pictures reads. “When his punk-rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is he has no idea why. As Hank attempts to evade their ever-tightening grip, he’s got to use all his hustle to stay alive long enough to find out….”
Butler and Kravitz have some pretty steamy chemistry in the Caught Stealing trailer, but she’s just one of the many colorful characters populating this version of NYC. Carol Kane feeds Butler matzo ball soup, Bad Bunny threatens him with a gun, and Regina King gives him a grave warning about “scary monsters.” Darren Aronofsky, typically known for bleak and upsetting films like Requiem For A Dream, Mother!, and Black Swan, said he was looking to have some fun with his next project. He found it in the form of Charlie Huston’s screenplay based on his own novel of the same name. “There are lots of weird characters and lots of weird sub-stories going on. But I think it’s very much a crime caper,” the auteur told Vanity Fair earlier this year, reflecting on making a period piece in his home city. “I tried to make a genre film with the best actors in the world, with the best crew in the world, and bring it to life with the kind of energy that I felt in ’98.” Caught Stealing premieres in theaters August 29.
