I hated this movie. My wife and I went to see it in the theater this afternoon. If I had been watching at home, half way through I would have left to go play video games, exercise, twiddle my thumbs, stare out the window or basically do anything to not waste any more time on this movie.
The ads make it look like this is going to be a quirky and fun movie like Baby Driver, Bullet Train or even True Romance. But that is not at all what I got. To be fair, my wife said she did like the movie, didn't love it, but at least liked it, but not me. I thought it was completely ruined by one detail that made the rest of the movie simply unwatchable. Because I have always promised to never spoil a movie... even if I think it is terrible, I won't spoil this one. But I can say that something so serious and unpleasant happens in the middle of the movie that it completely ruined it.
The movie starts as a fun romp with quirky characters and some funny dialogue. Austin Butler is just flat our charming so its hard to find a fault with him. I also think this was the best role Zoe Kravitz has played (outside of herself in the TV show 'The Studio"). She is also incredibly charismatic. Matt Smith as the Punk (literally) neighbor is also very entertaining. If they had stuck to the light-hearted, quirky and fun motif, this would have been a great movie. But they didn't. And it ruined the movie completely.
The first act is quirky and fun. The third act could have been quirky and fun. But the second act is so devastatingly serious that it made me feel bad about laughing at anything after that point.
To be honest, this is my own fault. Darren Aronofsky has literally never made a fun movie. Seriously look up all 20 of them. You might says some are good (most are not) but not a single one is fun. I have no idea why I let the ad campaign fool me into thinking he learned how to have fun. I mean the only movies of his that I actually think was extremely high quality were Pi and Requiem for a Dream. Neither of which come anywhere close to even 1 fun scene. Requiem for a dream may be a masterpiece, but it is one that you watch when you want to be reminded that"drugs are bad M'kay".
Actual footage of me trying to escape this movie.
I could really tell that Aronofsky was trying to be fun. He actually pulled it off for two thirds of the movie but that middle third... he just couldn't help himself. He simply had to make the audience miserable for no reason. By not picking a lane of either being super sad and serious, or being fun with some dark humor, he ended up doing neither. This movie felt like two completely different movies mashed together in a way that made nothing work.
Sadly, all it would have taken was one different detail and he could have actually pulled off a fun romp. I have no idea how this made it by a test audience without them saying "What the fuck? You seriously did that?"
I have always said, I actually appreciate bad movies. Following the Taoist principal of the Yin and The Yang, seeing terrible movies makes me really appreciate all of the good ones. It also allows me to show my readers that I don't just automatically love everything I watch. Sometimes a writer and director make a horrendous mistake. Both clearly did in Caught Stealing.