In 鈥淐aught Stealing,鈥� director Darren Aronofsky teaches a lesson about cat-sitting for neighbors: Don鈥檛.
Eager to get back home, a punker (nicely played by Matt Smith) stashes his cat with neighbor Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) when he makes a quick getaway.
Thompson, a former baseball player who now tends听bar, is unsure he鈥檚 the best man for the job. But then thugs come calling, ask for the missing neighbor and leave a calling card听鈥� a thrashing that lands the cat sitter in the hospital.
Thankfully, Hank doesn鈥檛 ignore authorities and calls a detective (smartly played by Regina King) who has a 鈥渂een there, done that鈥� past with others. She takes the info, then tells him there are two Orthodox Jews who also have been nosing around.
Before long, poor Hank is toting the cat through New York, hoping to find help听鈥� and an answer to the mystery at hand. Millions, apparently, are stashed somewhere but, where, how and why?
The cat (smartly played by a veteran film cat named Tonic) holds the key, but isn鈥檛 revealing clues. Instead, that鈥檚 left to Hank to suss out.
Butler runs through landmarks in the city, dodges bad guys on public transportation and deals with a missing kidney (among other things) before he learns the truth.
Aronofsky never lets the film sag or the irony dissolve. He uses the cat to good effect and doesn鈥檛 allow Butler to slip into Method mode.
That makes scenes with the Jews (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D鈥橭nofrio) more fun than the Russian-speaking mobsters who set the wheels turning.
While Zoe Kravitz听鈥� as Hank鈥檚 girlfriend听鈥� should have gotten more screen time, she provides impetus for the cat sitter鈥檚 moves.
Dark and moody, 鈥淐aught Stealing鈥� benefits from its time frame 鈥斕齣t鈥檚 set in 1998. Aronofsky shows the World Trade Towers and references Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Those touchstones help viewers understand why certain tactics aren鈥檛 employed during this cat-tastrophe.
Carol Kane makes a brief appearance when Hank is taken to a home where he鈥檚 more than encouraged to eat. That ups the laughter and gives him one more reason to rely on those skills he learned in baseball. The cat, meanwhile, seems to know who to trust.
When the punker returns (spoiler alert!), it鈥檚 clear who鈥檚 batting cleanup.
While 鈥淐aught Stealing鈥� often goes off into too many directions (particularly for a man who just had a kidney removed), it shows how versatile Butler can be. Work he does here isn鈥檛 at all like anything we saw in 鈥淓lvis鈥� or 鈥淒une, Part 2.鈥�
He鈥檚 playing in early Brad Pitt leagues and could be the one who drives home big films decades from now.
That鈥檚 a tall order, to be sure, but as long as he has the cat in tow, he鈥檚 geared for a home run.