Caught Stealing

The film opens in 1998 on the Lower East Side. Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) works as a bartender at Paul’s Bar. He frequently calls his mother back in California to talk about the San Francisco Giants. After closing up, he goes back to his apartment with his girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz), a paramedic. They run into his neighbor Russ Binder (Matt Smith), a loudmouth Brit. He asks Hank to look after his cat Bud since Russ is going back to London to visit his sick father. They also briefly deal with Hank and Russ’s nosy neighbor Duane (George Abud). Hank and Yvonne then proceed to have sex. The next morning, after Yvonne leaves for work, Hank sees two Russian thugs – Aleksei and Pavel (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin) – pounding on Russ’s door. Hank tries to keep them out of the apartment, leading to a violent fight where Pavel brutally kicks Hank in his side until he is unconscious. A flashback shows Hank driving with his friend Dale (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) back when he was a prospective baseball player. They see a small cow in the middle of the road, and Hank swerves to avoid hitting it. He ends up crashing into a pole, killing Dale and suffering a career-ending leg injury. Hank wakes up in the hospital to Yvonne in the room, informing him that he has lost a kidney after being in a coma for two days. After bringing him home, Yvonne tells Hank that she wants him to promise that he can take their relationship seriously and to not be so stuck in his past. Hank makes an earnest effort to listen to Yvonne by dumping out his alcohol. After doing laundry, he comes back and finds that Aleksei and Pavel are trying to break into Russ’s

apartment. Hank sneaks past them undetected and later gets in touch with Detective Elise Roman (Regina King). She tells Hank that Russ is involved with Hasidic Jewish gangster brothers Lipa and Shmully Drucker (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio), who are both very dangerous. Hank insists to Roman that he is not in any way involved with gangsters. She tells him to contact her if he has any other information. After the cops leave, Hank finds a key hidden in a squeaky toy in Bud’s litter box. He looks out the peephole of his door and sees Lipa and Shmully trying to get into Russ’s apartment. Hank calls Roman and leaves her a message. Hank later goes to Paul’s with the key and gets very drunk, with Yvonne finding him in the street. He bemoans to her how he lost everything with his accident. She manages to get him home, where he passes out alone. In the morning, Hank wakes up to find the Russians there with their associate, another gangster named Colorado (Bad Bunny). They have also injured Bud’s leg. Colorado interrogates Hank over Russ’s whereabouts, as well as the key’s location, but as he starts to physically attack Hank, Duane comes over to interrupt. One of the Russians scares Duane off, which pisses off Colorado since they are not trying to draw more attention to themselves. He orders Hank to get the key and to not call Roman, or else they will kill people close to him. Hank goes to leave Bud with Yvonne while he handles the situation, though she is fearful for him when he comes to her all bloodied up. Hank stops at a pay phone to call Paul (Griffin Dunne) since he thinks he left the key at the bar. He is then spotted by

Lipa, who chases him through the streets with Shmully until Hank manages to outrun and evade them. He goes to the bar but finds only a phone number. He calls it and speaks to Colorado. Hank says he left the key with a friend, and Colorado mentions he knows about Yvonne. Hank realizes she is in danger and rushes back to her apartment, only to discover she has already been executed with a bullet to the head. Hank breaks down by her body. Hank goes to the station to speak to Roman, filled with guilt over Yvonne’s murder. She tells Hank what she knows about Colorado and the Russians while they are at a diner, but they arrive to reveal that they are all in cahoots with Roman, who is corrupt and plans to retire to Tulum. The crooks take Hank to Paul’s to get the key. Hank finds Paul with bar regular Amtrak (Action Bronson). A fight quickly breaks out, with Colorado shooting Amtrak dead. He nearly shoots Paul too until Roman blows Colorado’s brains out for screwing things up. Hank and Paul hide out in a safe room, but as Paul tries to grab his gun and return fire, the Russians shoot him dead. Hank locks himself in the room until Roman and the Russians are gone. Hank recovers the key from a homeless man named Jason (Will Brill) in the clothes that he abandoned during his bender the other night. Hank goes into Russ’s apartment and hides with a baseball bat as someone comes in. Hank swings the bat and brains the person, who happens to be Russ returning home. Hank angrily tells him what he’s been dealing with in Russ’s absence, including what happened to Yvonne. Russ explains that he was always in business with the

Druckers working in Colorado’s nightclub, but he was forced to involve Roman since she owes money to the Russians’ boss. The key is supposed to open a storage unit containing $4 million that Russ was going to split among the crooks. After getting to the storage unit, Russ attempts to double cross Hank and take the money and run, leading to a scuffle that ends with Russ falling and getting knocked unconscious. Hank gets the money and Russ, and then agrees to meet with Roman and the Russians at Flushing Meadows. Hank offers to give them Russ and the key if they give back Bud. A panicked Russ gets into a struggle with Pavel over his gun, shooting and killing Aleksei. Hank and Russ grab Bud and escape Roman and Pavel, making it onto the subway through Shea Stadium. Russ bids Hank farewell as he is dying from his injuries, and Hank leaves Russ’s body there. Hank takes a bus with Bud to Coney Island. He wakes up on the beach to a phone call from Roman, who is planning to pin all the recent murders, including Yvonne’s on him, and even threatens to go after his mother, unless he brings the key to the Russians’ supper club in Brighton Beach. Hank calls his mother one last time to tell her to get somewhere safe before he goes to handle things. Hank surrenders himself to the Druckers. He makes a deal with them to lead them to Russ’s money in exchange for killing Roman. Lipa and Shmully bring Hank to the home of their mother (Carol Kane) for Shabbos dinner before they take him outside the supper club. They tie him to the wheel while the brothers go inside and shoot the place up. In the chaos, Hank sees Roman

running into the streets. He uses the car’s lighter to burn his cuffs off and go after her. Pavel finds him and attacks him again, but Hank fights and knocks him out. Hank catches up to Roman and incapacitates her by stabbing her through her foot with a broken bat. The Druckers arrive and shoot her dead. The Druckers make Hank drive them home after he reveals that he kept the key hidden in Bud’s bandaged leg. The brothers agree to let Hank live and walk away with a small share of the cash. Everything seems to be fine…until Lipa produces a gun lighter to light a cigarette…which Hank recognizes as having belonged to Yvonne. Lipa realizes Hank knows the truth, and he tries to justify Yvonne’s murder because Hank ran from them. Hank sees he’s the only one wearing a seatbelt and he starts to speed the car up until he crashes into a pole. Lipa is sent flying through the windshield while Shmully dies with glass in his throat. Hank takes most of the money and flees the country with Bud to go to Tulum for a new beginning. During the credits, we see Hank’s mother (Laura Dern) receiving a large share of the money from him. Related Movies: *CUT TO THE CHASE*Brought to you by In the late 90s, Hank Thompson is a former prospective baseball player whose career came to an end after a leg injury caused by a car accident that killed Hank's friend Dale. He now works as a bartender and is in a relationship with a medic named Yvonne. Hank's British neighbor Russ asks him to look after his cat Bud while Russ goes back to London. Hank soon finds himself involved with Russian gangsters Aleksei and Pavel, plus Puerto Rican criminal Colorado,

Hasidic Jewish criminal brothers Lipa and Shmully Drucker, and corrupt cop Elise Roman. Each of them has some involvement with Russ and other criminal activities, but they are after a key that Russ kept hidden in Bud's litter box that opens a storage unit containing $4 million. Yvonne is murdered as a result of Hank's involvement, and he becomes stricken with guilt. While trying to recover the key from the bar where he works, Colorado kills a bar regular before Roman kills him for screwing up the plan. After the bar owner is killed, Hank recovers the key from a homeless man. Russ returns, and Hank makes him take him to the money so they can give it to Roman and the Russians. Russ panics and kills Aleksei before he and Hank escape, and Russ dies after sustaining head injuries from Hank. Roman later calls Hank and threatens to implicate him in the recent murders and also go after his mother in California if he does not return the key. Hank has no choice but to team up with the Druckers to kill Roman. After the job is done, the Druckers are prepared to let Hank live and walk away with some money, until Hank sees that Lipa has Yvonne's gun lighter, revealing that the Druckers killed her. Hank purposely crashes his car again, killing the Druckers and leaving him with all the money. He flees the country with Bud to Tulum, while sending his mother a large sum of the money.