Caught Stealing 4K 2025 Ultra HD 2160p

Former baseball player Hank Thompson plunges into the criminal underworld of 1990s New York.

User Review

Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother!, The Fountain, The Wrestler – not a complete but very telling list of Aronofsky's films. Although it's difficult to even call it a “list of films” when it comes to Darren – it's a list of intense psychological sessions with one of the most famous psychologists, probing the inner workings of our being through physical/external triggers. The director pays a lot of attention to the physical manifestations of psychological metamorphoses. In this case, I am, of course, biased, because I am fond of this interpretation in the style of Kafka with his The Metamorphosis.

Therefore, the first news that Aronofsky was shooting a crime comedy came as a slight surprise. After all, this is essentially the author's first film of this genre. However, after watching it, I reconsidered my initial surprise, because it is still a Darren film, but one that explores a new phenomenon/occurrence in our world.

The main character, a failed baseball star, suffers a knee injury in an accident, as well as psychological trauma from the death of a close friend. Hank Thompson (that's our protagonist's name) tries in every way to escape his past, both mentally and physically. He doesn't demand anything from life, he works in a bar, has a girlfriend who hints at a steady relationship, that is, everything is going its own way. He has long since surrendered to the flow of life, holding his oars (naturally with the San Francisco Giants emblem) firmly in the air.

But life is very rarely just a calm river (strange, isn't it?); more often than not, calm sailing is replaced by rafting, in which, without rowing, you won't get out alive. However, no matter how hard Hank tries not to get attached to anything or anyone, the boat fills up with “passengers” for whom you are responsible. And every new turn of the mountain river carries the danger of taking your loved ones away forever.

But from the very beginning, Hank, out of habit, tries to get out of the situation his neighbor has dragged him into as quickly and safely as possible. Yes, Hank is not to blame for anything, but life, as the author of the story notes, is unfair.

Aranofsky explores escape from danger, from oneself — from everything in the name of imaginary peace, which is just around the corner. Yes, at times the director interprets this escape literally, and metaphors of this level are not entirely characteristic of Darren, but here it is worth noting that the escape itself — the action — is filmed with the highest quality, energetically, vividly, and well. And much of the credit for this goes to the editing. Moreover, the editing was clearly combined with the music tracks, which makes it doubly enjoyable to watch (and listen to). The editing is probably the strongest (but not the only) part of this film.

The acting did not impress with any particular performances, which often occur in Aranofsky's films. The lead actor, Austin Butler, was not annoying, which is good, because I am slightly tired of his repetitive roles as a lonely, misunderstood wolf, but he looked harmonious in the role of the eternal Tom Cruise runner.

Of course, it's difficult to surpass our gang — Kolokolnikov and Kukushkin. And although they don't have much screen time, their characters are naturally quite vivid. However, there is one caveat — Kukushkin played Kukushkin, Kolokolnikov played Kolokolnikov, as if they entered the film as themselves and left the same way. Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate their work; they were simply themselves. Not bad, but not good either.

In general, apart from the main character, it is very difficult to evaluate the other actors: there are few of them, but each leaves a vivid impression, and so you are kind of impressed, but you don't have time to really analyze what it was. At the same time, perhaps this is the point of the random and not-quite-passengers who sometimes sit with you in an inflatable boat. Still, I would like to see more development of those who influence the main character's life.

And perhaps it's worth mentioning that the story itself obviously exists in a vacuum, meaning that some circumstances are simply absurd: they don't take into account factors beyond the movie screen, happening behind it, so the story is more like a fairy tale. You probably need to understand this before watching.

Although Darren somehow shaped the main message of the film, there was no new psychological session. It was a vivid presentation from the TED stage. This does not make the film bad, only vivid, intense, somewhat superficial, with the feeling that the director really took a break while making it. And... what's good: this film will indeed give you a chance to relax. Just enjoy the film. Thank you, Darren!

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (81.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10+
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1
#English: Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos 5.1
#French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#Thai: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Info Subtitles

English SDH, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin American), Swedish, Thai, Vietnamese.