Caught Stealing is a 2025 black comedy crime thriller adapted from Charlie Huston’s 2004 novel of the same name and made in the style of old-school crime thrillers but with a twist of dark humor. The plot is centered around Hank, a bartender in New York City, whose life turns upside down when his neighbor, Russ, asks him to babysit his pet cat, Bud, as he leaves for London to tend to a family emergency. Overall, Caught Stealing makes for quite an entertaining watch, with an intriguing plot and hooking performances and visuals.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Set in 1998, Caught Stealing begins with a nightscape view over New York City, with the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center visible from the Lower East Side, where the protagonist, Hank Thompson, finishes his shift at a local bar. Hank works late hours as a bartender, and he literally has to offer free shots to the patrons to convince them that the place is shutting for the night at 4 in the morning. He has a friendly relationship with his bosses, Paul and Amtrak, and is fairly content with his life, except for being slightly nervous about whether his favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, will be able to make it to the postseason phase of the MLB. At the end of his shift, Hank’s beloved girlfriend, Yvonne, comes to pick him up from the bar, as she too ends her night shift as a trainee nurse. The couple walk back to Hank’s modest apartment together, engrossed with the idea of making passionate love, but have to deal with a different matter upon reaching the place.
Hank’s next-door neighbor, Russ Miner, is hurriedly locking up his apartment and rushing to take a flight to his home in London after receiving news of his father’s deteriorating health. Russ wants Hank to take care of his pet cat, Bud, for a few days, until he returns and takes him back. Although the protagonist does not want to deal with the responsibilities of keeping a pet in his apartment, he eventually decides to do so upon Yvonne’s insistence. Bud takes no time settling in, which is of course due to the fact that his litter box, feeding bowl, and bed have all been carefully left by Russ. Yvonne leaves the next morning, and Hank prepares breakfast for himself and steps out to fetch some cat food from Russ’ apartment for Bud.
But before he can open his neighbor’s apartment with a copy of the key left by Russ himself, two mean-looking men come to the place in search of Russ and refuse to believe that he has left the country. The two men, of Russian origin, do not hesitate to show how they are tough goons not to be messed with, as they beat up Hank for trying to protect Russ (as they believe), which leaves the protagonist bleeding profusely and having to be rushed to the hospital by his other neighbor. As he wakes up two days later, Hank is utterly confused about what had just happened, and he opens up to the cops about the whole incident, still unaware that he is about to land up in an even more troubling situation.
What had happened in Hank’s past?
Alongside the main plot, we are also given an idea about Hank Thompson’s past, which still has a significant effect on his mind at present and eventually goes on to play an important part in the main plot as well. Born and raised in Patterson, California, Hank was once a brilliant baseball player with a bright career ahead of him. His performances for his high school baseball team had made Hank one of the hottest young prospects in the country, and he and those around him dreamed of the possibility of him being signed by an MLB team even before going to college. But all these hopes and dreams were shattered on one usual day, when Hank and his best friend, Dale, were driving around in the countryside while also having multiple cans of beer.
With Hank’s instincts clouded by the influence of alcohol, he was unable to keep the car under control when a cow appeared on the road just behind a bend, and the vehicle swerved onto the nearby grass at high speed. A metal pole ended up stopping the speeding car in a horrible crash, which immediately catapulted Dale, in the passenger seat, out of the windshield and onto the hood. Although Hank had survived the accident, Dale had not been so lucky, as the grave injuries had killed him instantly. The memory of this accident keeps haunting Hank to this day, as he often has nightmares about it. Deep in his mind, he also holds himself responsible for having killed Dale, for it was he who had decided to drink and drive on that day, and he seems to be suffering from survivor’s guilt as well. Furthermore, he also feels extremely ashamed of the fact that the first thought that hit him after the accident was how his baseball career was certainly over because of his horrible knee injury, not the well-being of his best friend.
Even beneath this layer of guilt and grief is Hank’s frustration with regard to how the accident had completely turned his life around. A five-star prospect who would have surely made it to the MLB and built a career in professional baseball was reduced to looking for any job that he could get into with his limited education and intellect. Hank could not bear the disappointment of staying in his hometown anymore, and had moved to New York and started working as a bartender, knowing well that he would not be able to move any higher in the job market. His only connection back home is through his regular phone calls with his mother, who had once been his baseball coach and who still enthusiastically supports the SF Giants, along with her son.
Who are Hank and Russ wanted by?
As the plot thickens in Caught Stealing, the complications keep increasing, particularly with regard to the different factions involved in the whole matter. The first people who come looking for Russ and end up targeting Hank are the Russian mobsters, Aleksei and Pavel, who clearly seem to be working with someone else from the very beginning. Although Hank initially mistakes them to be Ukrainians because of their thick accent and the presence of a Ukrainian ghetto near his locality, his misconception is broken by the NYPD detective handling his case, Elise Roman. When Roman first comes to the scene, she seems to be responding to the burglary attempt at Russ’ apartment. However, in her very first conversation with Hank, she reveals that Russ is actually a prime suspect in a narcotics case, which is why she interrogates him as well, as the men had been good friends.
Roman warns Hank about two Jewish, or Hasidic, to be precise, gangsters known as the Drucker brothers, who she believes will soon come looking for Russ as well, as he had been dealing drugs along with them. The warning turns out to be warranted, although Hank is not threatened by the brothers until later on, when he realizes that they have been tailing him around the city. This means that the Hasidic brothers get added to the list of people looking for Hank and Russ, and a third party soon joins in as well. A Puerto Rican mobster named Colorado visits Hank at his apartment, threatening to kill him unless he hands over a certain key to them, which had originally belonged to Russ. Colorado reveals himself to be working with the Russians, and they are against the Drucker brothers, meaning that the protagonist is in trouble from two sides. To make matters even worse for him, Detective Elise Roman eventually reveals that she and her close associates are also working with Colorado and the Russians. All these people are in search of a key that Russ had supposedly left at his apartment before clearly having fled the country. Hank finds this key hidden inside a toy in Bud’s litter box, which drops him in the thick of the twisted hunt.
Who does the money really belong to?
It is only when Russ finally returns from London and is funnily welcomed by Hank with a baseball bat to the face that the reason for the hardened criminals looking for him is revealed. In his younger days, meaning starting a few years ago, Russ had been working with Lipa and Shmully Drucker, the Hasidic brothers who already had a well-established drug-peddling business at the time. Russ possibly had some prior connections, or good relations, with the people at the nightclubs owned by Colorado, as his punk-rock attire seems to suggest, and so he started selling the Drucker brothers’ drugs at Colorado’s clubs. They had recently come into possession of a large stash of ecstasy from Belgium, which they had started selling on the streets in New York, and Russ continued working for them.
However, trouble began when the NYPD narcotics detective, Elise Roman, arrested Russ and forced him to squeal about the NYC underground gangs, essentially turning him into an informant. With nothing else to offer, Russ had given Roman the information about the Drucker brothers’ stash of ecstasy, and he was surprised when the NYPD did not arrest the men for the crime. Turns out, Roman was a corrupt police officer with her own shady past, and she owed a lot of money to the head of a Russian mob, Igor, for undisclosed reasons. Therefore, when she found out about the ecstasy from Russ, Roman passed on this information to Igor, bringing the latter’s henchmen, Aleksei and Pavel, into the equation.
Through Roman, Igor then brokered a deal with the Druckers, in which the ecstasy would be sold through Colorado’s clubs, located in neighborhoods run by the Russian mob, and they wanted a cut out of the total sales. Roman, Igor, and Colorado basically used the information acquired from Russ to threaten the Druckers to either give them a cut of their ecstasy sales or face legal action from the NYPD. As the deal was accepted by all parties, they expressed immense distrust in each other and agreed to have a sort of banker, who would fairly distribute the money at the end of the sale.
Since Russ was technically the only common person among all of them, he was selected to be the banker, and all the money was stowed away in a secret storage locker, the location of which was only known to Russ. But when Russ suddenly left the country upon receiving news of his father having suffered a stroke, all the parties believed that he had run away with the money, since Russ had informed nobody about his journey to London, except for his neighbor. Thus, the key that Russ had hidden in the litter box, and which Hank retrieves after a lot of trouble, is required to open the storage locker where the money has been kept. The money belongs to each of the sides, but with these unwanted developments, the Druckers want to reclaim the entire amount, while Roman, Colorado, and the Russians want to get rid of the brothers so that they get a bigger share each.
Who had killed Yvonne?
During Caught Stealing’s ending, Russ tries to sell out Hank by claiming to the gangsters that the protagonist had planned to take the money and run, but he is unable to execute his plan. As a result, the Druckers, Roman, and the Russians all chase after Russ and Hank, with Russ eventually passing away from the head injury sustained when hit by the baseball bat. As a result, Hank is left alone to deal with the criminals, and he makes a fine plan that would ensure his safety. He breaks the blade of the storage key and hides it inside the bandage on Bud’s leg, knowing that nobody would search the cat for it. Hank then approaches the Drucker brothers and lies to them that Roman currently has the key with her but also states that only he knows the location of the storage locker, as Russ had told him about it.
Hank makes the brothers believe that they can keep all the money for themselves if they can kill Roman and bring the key back to him. Colorado had already been killed by Roman by this time, and so the Druckers make quick work of the woman and her Russian friends, shooting up the club that they frequent. Ultimately, they kill Roman and the Russians but are unable to find the key, which is when Hank reveals that he had had it with him this entire time. It all seems to work out well for everyone, as the Druckers agree to let Hank live and also give him a significant cut from the share for his help.
However, the situation turns around quickly when Hank sees Lipa and Schmully use the same lighter that Yvonne used to carry around with her. Yvonne had been mercilessly killed by someone towards the beginning of the film, and Hank had believed that it must have been Colorado who had done this. The reason for such a belief on his part was that Colorado had threatened to harm Yvonne if Hank did not reveal the location of the key to him. However, it is now revealed, at the very end, that it was the Drucker brothers who had murdered Yvonne, simply to warn Hank against messing with them. This confirms that the brothers are no less evil or criminal-minded than the rest of the antagonists, as they did not hesitate to kill an innocent woman simply to send a threatening message.
How does Hank get over his past in an unexpected manner?
While Hank had made up his mind to help the Druckers and settle with the money they would pay him, this last revelation makes him change his decision instantly. Following his devastating car accident, Hank had done a lot to try and reform his life, even abstaining from alcohol, mostly, and he had genuinely fallen in love with Yvonne. Therefore, making a deal with the murderers of his beloved girlfriend is not on the cards for him. Despite never having driven a car after his accident in his teenage years, Hank is forced to drive the Drucker brothers to the storage locker, and it is on this drive that they reveal how they had killed Yvonne.
It was simply Hank’s fear and the associated feelings of trauma and grief that had kept him from driving for all these years, but he now boldly decides to let go of all these feelings out of a strong sense of vengeance. Instead of fearing losing control of the car, Hank uses his prior experience to intentionally veer the vehicle off the road and ram it straight into a metal pole. He had known that such a crash would not hurt the driver, which is why he grabbed hold of the cat, Bud, at the very last minute, to keep it safe as well. But the passengers get flung out of the car and killed instantly, just as Hank had wanted, as his act of revenge is now complete.
Does Hank get to keep the money?
In Caught Stealing’s ending, all the other parties after the drug money are dead, meaning Hank gets to keep the entire 4 million dollars that had been kept away at the storage locker. He does have to give up his old life, as Hank now pretends to be Russ by growing a mohawk like him. Since Hank had gotten involved in the numerous crimes taking place in the Lower East Side in the past few days, the police had found out about him, meaning that he can no longer use his own identity, and he has to stay away from the country for a few years as well. This is why Hank uses Russ’ passport to get away from the US and move to Tulum, in Mexico, where he intends to spend some time in hiding. Along with the money, he also keeps Bud, the pet cat, after having fallen in love with the animal despite initially refusing to shelter it.
Hank mails half of the money, meaning 2 million dollars, to his mother in California, notifying her about how he will not be in touch with her for some time now, as the police will be tapping her phone. For someone like him, who regularly speaks with his mother on the phone without failure, this is probably going to be a difficult decision, but then again, he gets to walk away with 2 million dollars out of nowhere. In baseball, ‘caught stealing’ is the term used to refer to a situation where a non-batting runner gets caught while stealing bases and is considered out from the round. In this case, Hank technically steals bases (getting hold of 2 million dollars) without getting caught in a literal sense. But perhaps he does get caught out figuratively, as the incident cuts him off from the only remaining family in his life. This is probably why Hank switches off the TV while an important baseball game is on, as he is tired of the sport, but is ultimately seen smiling, suggesting that he is also excited about his new life ahead.
