Cat caught stealing

The opening scene of Caught Stealing shows a younger version of the main character sliding into home base and getting away with his theft. This sets the tone for a story of someone willing to take a flamboyant risk, though the basic events begin years later with the ball player sidelined into low end work in a Manhattan bar where he keeps the peace, a nice guy going nowhere. Agreeing to help a neighbor by cat sitting, he ends up trapped in a Kafkaesque mass of confusion as thugs of all sorts rain down a storm of violence that comes out of nowhere. Adapting his novel, screenwriter Charlie Huston makes sure his story’s defining traits stay intact, mainly an obsession with baseball and an incredibly appealing cat. Drawn to offbeat material, director Darren Aronofsky enthusiastically jumps into the quirks, keeping pace with a hero who has to run fast. Aronofsky catches the sense of a darker and dimmer Manhattan of 1997 in the days when the Twin Towers still stood, and people carried flip phones that didn’t track their whereabouts. This lends one element of credibility, though anyone who ever hung with a cat might question this one’s willingness to stay put when asked. For that matter, anyone who’s ever lost a kidney might wonder how the newly operated on hero can run so fast a few days after surgery. Star Austin Butler does his best to make it believable, oozing more charm than blood with his graceful, athletic moves—a quality that previously helped him earn a best actor nomination taking on the title role in Elvis. Butler exudes star power, supported by an impressive cast that includes Reginia King, Leiv Schreiber, Zoë Kravitz and Tonic the cat who definitely gets caught stealing the show.