It has been two weeks in a row of going to the cinema and seeing movies with themes I would rather not put in front of my eyes.  Yet, today’s film, Caught Stealing had more substance than last week’s, Honey Don’t!  What it comes down to is the two main characters.  Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) in Honey Don’t and Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler) in Caught Stealing are essentially good people.  The difference between them is that the former is a private detective and is inserting herself into situations.  The latter is more peaceful but still problematic.  While I will be sure to underscore those problems, I would contend that Hank in Caught Stealing is the more Christ-like.  It is not a great comparison, but I try to look at the positives.

Everything seems positive for Hank at the start of Caught Stealing.  He is a bartender, which is not the greatest job, but it appears steady.  He also is moving towards a steady relationship with his paramedic girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz).  As they rush back to his apartment to do adult stuff, it is clear that he gets along with his neighbors.  One is waiting for him at his door, the punk rock, mohawk wearing Englishman Russ (Matt Smith).  Russ is about to depart for London to visit his sick father and asks Hank to take care of his cat, Buddy, while he is gone.  Once that is settled, but before Hank gets in bed with Yvonne, he listens to a phone message from his mother (Laura Dern), with whom he is close.  Part of their bond is over their favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants.  America’s pastime is a major part of Hank’s life, and a painful one.  He had once been a highly touted prospect coming out of high school, but one accident changed everything.  Driving back from a game with a teammate, Dale (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), and drinking, Hank loses control of the vehicle trying swerve to avoid hitting a cow.  Now offroad, they run into a utility pole at high speed and Dale is launched through the windshield, killing him.  Hank’s knee is destroyed, and it is the end of his playing days.  It is a nightmare he wakes up from every morning, and the next one is no different.  Once Yvonne leaves, he goes about his day until, coming back from an errand, he is accosted by two Russian gangsters, Aleksei (Yuri Kolokolnikov) and Pavel (Nikita Kukushkin).  They are looking for Russ and given that he lives next door to Hank, they demand Hank tell them where Russ is.  The answer Hank gives is not satisfactory and he ends up in the hospital, having to have a kidney removed.  Yvonne is there for him when he awakens and helps get him home, reading the list of things he cannot do now that he has lost an organ.  One of these includes drinking, which he initially is committed to quitting.  It is something he is clearly addicted to, though, using it to deal with the stress of the past.  The stress of the present is getting worse, though, as he is questioned by Detective Roman (Regina King) in his apartment.  While he evidently knows no more about what is going on, one of her officers clogs his toilet.  It is as he is plunging the porcelain that he locates a key in Buddy’s litterbox.  He reaches out to Detective Roman about the find, but says his apartment is not the right place to meet.  Instead, he goes to his place of employment where he gives the key to the owner, Paul (Griffin Dunne).  Paul convinces Hank to have some drinks, and before Hank knows it, the night spirals out of control.  An embittered Hank lashes out at Yvonne, who comes to try and get him home, and she leaves before he gets to his building.  He manages to make it upstairs and passes out on the floor.  He is awakened in the morning by the Russians and another visitor, Colorado (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio).  Once more they are wanting to know about Russ.  To save himself, Hank mentions the key, but that he does not know of its whereabouts.  Before any more violence can be perpetrated, he is saved by a neighbor attracted by the noise.  Taking Buddy to Yvonne, he remembers something about the key being at the bar.  On the way, though, he is chased Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio), a pair of Hasidic Jew gangsters with whom Russ also had dealings.  Because Colorado had warned him about going to the police, Hank calls Colorado, only to be warned that not cooperating means danger for Yvonne.  Going to her place, Hank finds her dead.  Finally, Hank consults Detective Roman and they discuss the key’s possible location.  When Hank finally goes to the bar, he finds Detective Roman waiting for him, along with Colorado and the Russians.  Paul is there, too, and they force him to open the safe, which is where he says he stashed the key.  Instead, they end up killing Paul, but Hank is able to escape in the chaos.  As he walks towards his building, he remembers that at the end of his last drunken night, he had stripped off his clothes.  Jason (Will Brill), the homeless man that lives just outside, has the pants in which the key is pocketed.  Hank also is met by a newly returned Russ, who is promptly hit on the head with a baseball bat.  Though woozy, Russ takes Hank to the storage shed where Russ has stashed $4,000,000 he has accumulated for organized crime in the area, including the Jews and Russians.  Russ is about to murder Hank for learning of this, but Hank overpowers Russ.  Intending to use Russ as a bargaining chip, Hank tries to exchange Russ for Buddy, who has been taken by Detective Roman and the Russians.  Russ resists, and though they get back the cat, they have to flee.  Russ dies on a subway train and the next day, Hank arranges to meet Detective Roman.  Thinking Lipa and Shmully will want to cut out the others, Hank contacts them to accompany him.  Once they have completed their carnage, taking out Detective Roman and the Russians, they have Hank drive them to the storage compartment.  It is then that Hank learns they killed Yvonne.  Instead, Hank accelerates, ramming a pole that kills Lipa and Shmully.  Adopting Russ’ identity, Hank flees to Mexico with Buddy, sending half the money to his mother.

The last scene before the end credits in Caught Stealing started rolling is of Hank turning off a television showing a Giants playoff game.  It marks the completion of a change that is masterfully handled throughout the film.  As a Catholic, I may not have liked a lot of the content, but I can acknowledge that it is well done.  This is also a confession that I am guilty of wanting my cinematic lessons to come in neater packages.  Hank lives a different life than your typical Sunday Mass attendee.  It is a sinful one, to be sure, but he is no less a child of God than the person sitting next to me in the pew.  What is interesting, though, is that the film infantilizes the aspects of his character that are less seedy.  For example, he talks to his mother every day, something us Catholics do whenever we pray the Hail Mary.  More broadly, for most of the movie he is childishly reacting to the things done to him instead of actively trying to do something about them.  As the plot progresses, this takes a toll on him.  He already blames himself for Dale’s death, which is why he drinks heavily.  Yvonne’s murder is also placed on his shoulders when he does not provide the information the gangsters seek in a timely manner.  It takes his mother being threatened for Hank to come up with a viable plan.  While I would have liked to have seen him turn himself in to the authorities, by shutting off the game at the end it shows that he has put his old way of life behind him.  The book of Ecclesiastes talks about how there is a time and a place for everything.  By the movie’s conclusion, it was time for Hank to put aside childish things.

Given the way in which much of Caught Stealing is presented, it feels a little strange to consider anything in it as “childish.”  And while I feel Hank made many poor decisions, I want to celebrate the good things he did from a Catholic perspective.  The first place to start is with his dealings with Jason.  The first time we witness them interacting, Hank is giving Jason money.  Upon seeing the bills in his hand, Jason calls after Hank, saying the former baseball player is a good man.  Jason repeats this when Hank tells the homeless man to keep the pants in which the key is found.  In other words, Hank has literally performed a corporal act of mercy: clothing the naked.  Such moments are extra special when you consider that we are called to view people like Jason as Jesus.  This means not only doing as Jesus would, but literally thinking of Jason as an other Jesus.  Thus, when you give to such a person, you are directly giving to God.  Another facet to this is to look at Jason through the lens of suffering.  To notice that in another is to have a suffering spirit, something Lipa and Shmully recognize in Hank.  The problem with Hank is that he tends to wallow in that suffering.  We have already mentioned his drinking.  While inebriated, he tells Yvonne that all he has is garbage, which causes her to go home alone.  At the same time, he is able to transcend it enough to help the defenseless, like Jason and Buddy the cat.  These are small, everyday miracles that should be celebrated.  Doing so can help one heal, and hopefully lead you into a deeper relationship with God.

Unfortunately, the only time God is discussed in Caught Stealing is by gun-toting Hasidic Jews, who are not good representatives of their culture.  What the movie is aiming for is to give you a sense of New York City in the 1990s.  If you are feeling nostalgic, and can get past the sexuality and violence, then maybe?  Otherwise, this one is safer to avoid.