Speaker 1: A man named Hank is enlisted to watch his neighbor
Speaker 1: Russ's cat named Bud. Shortly after Russ leaves, Hank is
Speaker 1: beset upon by a number of violent thugs and enforcers,
Speaker 1: all looking for something that Russ owed them. Hank is
Speaker 1: presumed to have been caught stealing. I'm Ronald Young Jr.
Speaker 1: And I'm leaving the theater, which is.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: This is Ronald and I am leaving the theater after
Speaker 1: seeing Caught Stealing. Caught Stealing Written by Charlie Huston, directed
Speaker 1: by Darren Aronofsky, starring Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoe Kravitz,
Speaker 1: Matt Smith, Leave Schreiber, Vincent Danafrio, Benito Martinez Ocazio also
Speaker 1: known as Bad Bunny, Griffin Dunn, and Carol Caine and
Speaker 1: for complete cast listing, you can go to the link
Speaker 1: in our show notes It is just Me Today. Caught
Speaker 1: Stealing is a movie about a man named Hank played
Speaker 1: by Austin Butler, who is tasked with taking care of
Speaker 1: his neighbor's cat. His neighbor is Matt Smith, who is
Speaker 1: going to deal with his ailing father in England, so
Speaker 1: he leaves the cat with Hank uh and Hank then
Speaker 1: is beset upon by a number of villains and thugs
Speaker 1: who are attempting to get something back from his neighbor
Speaker 1: that he did not tell Hank about before he left this.
Speaker 1: If you watch the trailer for this film, it is
Speaker 1: kind of billed as this like a kind of like
Speaker 1: a crime rump movie where there's you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a fish out of water. Oh no, all this
Speaker 1: stuff is happening to me type of thing. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking of any comparisons right at the moment,
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why in a minute. You'll you'll
Speaker 1: probably understand why in a minute. But it's just one
Speaker 1: of those films where it's like, oh, no, you got
Speaker 1: the wrong guy type thing, but now you're still responsible.
Speaker 2: Like it's one of those films.
Speaker 1: And Hank is in a casual relationship with Zoe Kravitz
Speaker 1: in the film, and she is trying to help him
Speaker 1: as he goes along his way trying to navigate this situation.
Speaker 2: I didn't like this movie.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that it's probably attached to the
Speaker 1: last week and really starting to think about violence and
Speaker 1: just think about violence generally, how it's used in film,
Speaker 1: what it means as a tool of oppression, and what
Speaker 1: it means when when what it means when it's gratuitous.
Speaker 1: What does it even mean when there's something that is gratuitous,
Speaker 1: gratuitously violent, or needlessly violent in some cases, And this
Speaker 1: film is very violent, and it's violent in a way
Speaker 1: where there is no payoff. I don't feel any Catharsis afterwards,
Speaker 1: and I started to think about what that actually means.
Speaker 1: That there's a lot of stuff that we're watching in
Speaker 1: which there's some sort of violence setup, or someone gets
Speaker 1: punched in the face, and I'm supposed to be so
Speaker 1: angry that i can't wait to see that person get
Speaker 1: like dropped off a.
Speaker 2: Cliff later in the movie.
Speaker 1: It's typically like some sort of goon or something that's
Speaker 1: doing something terrible. This is a film in which early
Speaker 1: in the movie, Austin Butler is beset upon and beat
Speaker 1: so severely by these gangsters. And they show this to
Speaker 1: us by these Ukrainian gangsters or Russian. No, I think
Speaker 1: they're Russian, by these Russian gangsters, and I didn't make
Speaker 1: a mistake. There's a point in the film in which
Speaker 1: they are Someone says they are Ukrainian. The other person
Speaker 1: says they are Russian. So it's not me making a mistake.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to remember what the movie settled on.
Speaker 1: And they beat him so severely that one it was
Speaker 1: hard to watch a little bit, Like the sound design
Speaker 1: was great in that regard, but also he has to
Speaker 1: get his kidney removed because it was damaging. It was
Speaker 1: bleeding inside of him and it was bad. There's there's
Speaker 1: a sense in there where when you see this type
Speaker 1: of violence in a film, you expect him to kind
Speaker 1: of pull back to be like maybe like more funny.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like, oh, these are like hapless criminals, and
Speaker 1: the violence isn't like it's moral cartoonish violence. But this
Speaker 1: felt like very like gritty, real world violence. But then
Speaker 1: they would try to punctuate it with jokes. He one
Speaker 1: of the most violent thugs in the movie, is kind
Speaker 1: of making jokes and he's like not not very good
Speaker 1: at English, but he's also like making a lot of
Speaker 1: pop culture references when he's talking. But when he's doing that,
Speaker 1: horrible things are happening to Hank. And for me watching this,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if this is attached to what happened
Speaker 1: last week and kind of how I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: violence and the way everyone's been kind of pontificating on
Speaker 1: it what it means. I was uncertain if that's if
Speaker 1: like this movie was doing a bad job of this,
Speaker 1: which I suspect that it is, And is it just
Speaker 1: compound by the fact that I'm thinking about these things,
Speaker 1: or is it just the job is done so badly
Speaker 1: that this is making me feel bad, And I think
Speaker 1: maybe it's probably both, because I feel bad after watching this,
Speaker 1: Like I left and I felt sad. They at one
Speaker 1: point in the movie, like a way maybe a quarter
Speaker 1: of the way through, they kill Zoe Kravitz and then
Speaker 1: they like kind of make us look at it like
Speaker 1: not not her death but her body. And then the
Speaker 1: main character is suffering with trauma from the past of
Speaker 1: him killing his teammate while he was driving drunk, and
Speaker 1: his teammate is also I would say racially ambiguous.
Speaker 2: But I'm pretty sure he was black.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sitting here looking at like kind of
Speaker 1: these black folks that are facing the fallout of the
Speaker 1: decisions that the main character, Hank is making, and thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't like how this is I don't
Speaker 1: like how this is happening. And I think one part
Speaker 1: that really got me was just looking at this Kravitz.
Speaker 2: Part really got me.
Speaker 1: Because I just felt, I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to explain this. I just felt so bad like
Speaker 1: seeing her dead and seeing that it was essentially because
Speaker 1: of him, and there's no like, there's no other part
Speaker 1: of the movie where we get to be like I mean,
Speaker 1: at one point I was like, man, I hope she
Speaker 1: was in on it and this is like a fake
Speaker 1: death and it's like, oh no, a double cross, Like no,
Speaker 1: she she's like dead and then stays dead the rest
Speaker 1: of the film in a way that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, why are'm making me watch this? Like what,
Speaker 2: like I why would you do this? To be like?
Speaker 1: This doesn't and she really had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: any of the stuff that was happening. She was just
Speaker 1: helping her boyfriend and it they like, I just that
Speaker 1: part really soured the rest of the movie. And it
Speaker 1: happens about forty minutes in and the movie is an
Speaker 1: hour and forty seven minutes long, so everything that happens
Speaker 1: after that, I kept thinking what about her? And I know, y'all,
Speaker 1: I know it's kind of wild and like maybe again,
Speaker 1: maybe it's connected to the way I'm feeling right now,
Speaker 1: but it really, it really, it just stuck with me, man,
Speaker 1: like why I don't understand?
Speaker 2: Like what was the watching the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1: There was nothing about this movie that made me feel
Speaker 1: like this death was some sort of significant plot point
Speaker 1: that needed to happen in order for the film to
Speaker 1: be better or grittier or more motivating. He was already
Speaker 1: suffering trauma from his past that was hovering over the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie. You introduce this new trauma, and
Speaker 1: then over the course of the movie, like just more
Speaker 1: and more of his close people are and people from
Speaker 1: his circle social circle are being murdered.
Speaker 2: And in a way that's like I don't understand.
Speaker 1: Why does he The only thing that I think that
Speaker 1: makes this movie better is if at some point this
Speaker 1: guy dies too, And of course that doesn't happen. And
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to spoil this for people who are planning
Speaker 1: on watch it. Watching it and even having said all that,
Speaker 1: I think one important thing to note is that the
Speaker 1: acting is good. I mean, you heard the names that
Speaker 1: I said, Vincent, Dinafrio, Leave Schreiber, Austin Butler, of course,
Speaker 1: Zoe Kravitz, Regina King, everybody punched into work.
Speaker 2: But I really am concerned.
Speaker 1: About why this is a story that needs to be
Speaker 1: told right now. And it's not just the timing, because
Speaker 1: obviously the movie being released was never going to be
Speaker 1: at a time in which you don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen in the news based on a movie coming
Speaker 1: out like this. But I'm saying, like, if you watch
Speaker 1: this movie. When I got to the end, I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, well, what was the why did I?
Speaker 2: What was this? Did I?
Speaker 1: What was this? Why did I just watch this? And
Speaker 1: I don't like that feeling at the end of a movie.
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I want to be like, well
Speaker 1: they made laugh or something like that, and the parts
Speaker 1: in which they were trying to make me laugh, I
Speaker 1: just felt like, y'all murdered Zoe Kravitz. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why you did that, Like, what was the what was
Speaker 1: the purpose of that? Like normally you watch a film
Speaker 1: like that and when that happened, you're like, oh man,
Speaker 1: these these these antagonists are really serious, but none of
Speaker 1: the antagonists, like the antagonists would be like serious antagonists,
Speaker 1: but also doing silly things that's supposed to make you laugh,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not funny enough to match with the
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain this, but you've seen
Speaker 1: enough zany hijink films to be like, oh, these these
Speaker 1: bad guys are bad guys, but the good guys are
Speaker 1: way better. Like the protagonists aren't really in any danger,
Speaker 1: even though these bad guys are bad guys, and if
Speaker 1: they do get one significant death off, it is for
Speaker 1: a reason or for what seems like a reason, and
Speaker 1: it just that's not what I got in this film.
Speaker 1: I think the acting was great. I think the movie
Speaker 1: like it did make me want to watch it. Would
Speaker 1: I watch it again? Absolutely not. Yeah, And with all
Speaker 1: that being said, I think I have to give this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it exactly a two point five because
Speaker 1: I think I feel the same way about this movie
Speaker 1: that I did about The Long Walk, which is why
Speaker 1: did you make me watch this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: But again it ends up not being a two or
Speaker 1: lower simply because I mean, the acting was good, the
Speaker 1: construction of the film was fine, but I like y'all
Speaker 1: wrote something that I don't think needed to be made,
Speaker 1: and it makes me wonder about the things that aren't
Speaker 1: being made. If this is what's being made right now
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, when it's difficult for movies to
Speaker 1: be made, why are these the ones that are coming out.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, and I hope this one and
Speaker 1: The Long Walk disappear into the ether of forgetfulness.
Speaker 2: Two point five stars and with that, this.
Speaker 1: Leaving the Theater is a production of Oh it's big
Speaker 1: round Studios. I mix this episod and y'all can tell
Speaker 1: from the weariness of my voice it's been a long day.
Speaker 1: It's the end of a Sunday, it's been a long week,
Speaker 1: and it's about six fifty three right now. And what
Speaker 1: I'm planning to do is walk into my house and
Speaker 1: start watching Highest to Lowess for an on the couch
Speaker 1: episode of Leaving the Theater.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: On the Couch is back, but on the Couch is
Speaker 1: only available through Patreon. That's right, Patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: Leaving the Theater. You now have three unique offerings on
Speaker 1: the Patreon only that is the ad free feed. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've been hearing the ads. Now we turn them on.
Speaker 1: They are programmatic. They should be out through all of
Speaker 1: the catalog of the episodes. If you're listening right now,
Speaker 1: if you heard this episode, you probably heard an ad
Speaker 1: unless you're unless you're a Patreon member, there is I
Speaker 1: don't like that, which I need to get a new
Speaker 1: episode up. I know, I know, but I'm working on
Speaker 1: this right now. And you now have on the couch.
Speaker 1: So on the couch episodes which will involve typically television
Speaker 1: shows and you know, documentaries, things on Netflix, stuff that
Speaker 1: shows up that is not going to be in the theater.
Speaker 1: I will now be reviewing those on the couch. There
Speaker 1: will be a little bit lower production lift for me,
Speaker 1: I e. They'll be like, you know, less of the intro,
Speaker 1: just more me sitting on the couch pontificating. They'll still
Speaker 1: be edited, but just edited more lightly. But those will
Speaker 1: still be available through Patreon only. This is a labor
Speaker 1: of love, but it is labor. So if you're interested
Speaker 1: in the extra offerings that we have on patreon dot com,
Speaker 1: go to Patreon dot com slash leaving the Theater or
Speaker 1: go to the link in our show notes. Show art
Speaker 1: from Heather Wilder. Theme music by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
Speaker 1: For more information about Colt stealing, check out our show notes.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram Blue Sky, TikTok, threads,
Speaker 1: or letterbox at Owiz Bigron. That's at O h I
Speaker 1: T S b I g R o N. You can
Speaker 1: find out more about the show and other Ow's Big
Speaker 1: Round Studio shows by following us on Instagram at Owitz
Speaker 1: Bigrond Studios.
Speaker 2: Leaving the theater will be back soon. Thanks for listening.