David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Matt Smith’

Caught Stealing

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Austin Butler, Matt Smith, Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, George Abud, Griffin Dunne, Carol Kane

Running Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Black Swan and The Whale director Darren Aronofsky returns with a zany and rambunctious crime thriller Caught Stealing set in New York City in 1998, just three years before the fall of the Twin Towers.

Things are not kosher when youngster Hank Thompson expertly played with a vulnerability and intuition by Oscar nominee Austin Butler (Elvis) is asked to look after his mad neighbour’s cat. The crazy neighbour is British punk rocker drug dealer, complete with a Mohawk, Russ superbly played by Matt Smith who shot to fame in Netflix’s elegant British drama The Crown.

The cat has a key in its cat box, which opens Russ’s secret stash of drugs and money which several criminal gangs are after including the Russians and the Hebrews.

Hank Thompson is just a regular bar tender who gets involved in a web of crime and intrigue while trying to stay sober and look after his beautiful girlfriend Yvonne played by the fabulous Zoe Kravitz (The Batman, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blink Twice). Soon the Russian mafia are after him and Hank reaches out to hardened New York detective Roman wonderfully played with menace by Oscar winner Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk).

Darren Aronofsky pays homage to the 1993 film True Romance in Caught Stealing capturing that gritty desperation which Hank feels as he gets thrust into a notoriously untrustworthy world in which he doesn’t seem capable of defending himself or escaping. He won’t use a gun or drive a car.

To add fire to the mix, screenwriter Charlie Huston, who adapted the screenplay from his book by the same name, introduces some lethal Hebrew brothers who also want Russ’s share of the money.

Liev Schreiber (Golda, Spotlight, The Manchurian Candidate) and Vincent D’Onofrio (The Cell, Magnificent Seven) play sociopathic brothers Lipa and Shmully who feel nothing at attacking a glitzy Russian disco in the middle of a wedding.

Caught Stealing is an ingenuous film in which the main character goes from being a barman to overcoming all fears, addictions included, as he strives to protect himself and Russ’s cat from any harm while trying to outwit a multitude of bad characters all heavily armed.

With minimal special effects, Caught Stealing is a riveting and comic crime drama about the underbelly of New York just before the city changed forever at the end of a century in which anything still felt possible.

With lots of plot twists and crazy car chases, Caught Stealing gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 held together by a brilliant performance by Austin Butler whose talent seems boundless.

If you enjoy original content, then this film is highly recommended viewing.

Official Secrets

Director: Gavin Hood

Cast: Keira Knighley, Matthew Goode, Matt Smith, Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Northam, Indira Varma, Tamsin Greig, Jack Farthing, Conleth Hill

Set in London in 2003, South African director Gavin Hood’s British political film Official Secrets revolves around the complex story of Katherine Gunn who broke the Official Secrets Act and leaked highly classified Government information on British and American efforts to sway the vote in the UN in favour of a resolution legitimizing the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the dubious premise that Saddam Hussein was harbouring chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

Oscar nominee Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) stars as the morally conflicted Katherine Gunn who despite working for a highly classified division of the British Foreign Office and Mi6 deliberately leaked a politically sensitive memo to The Observer newspaper in London whereby political news reporter Martin Bright played by The Crown star Matt Smith.

Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List) reunites with Keira Knightley onscreen after their starring roles in director Saul Dibb’s magnificent costume drama The Duchess as he stars as human rights lawyer Ben Emmerson who decides to take on Gunn’s case in which she could be charged by the Crown prosecution for treason and for being a spy.

Official Secrets was Britain’s entry into the recent European Film Festival https://www.eurofilmfest.co.za/ which had recent screenings in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria in November before being released on the general circuit in December 2019.

Official Secrets is an engaging political thriller about manipulated intelligence and about the length powerful nations will go to, to legitimatize a foreign invasion even if the premise for such an invasion are both legally and morally flawed.

Featuring an array of British stars including Downton Abbey star Matthew Goode and Rhy Ifans along with Jeremy Northam and Poldark star Jack Farthing, Official Secrets is an engaging if slightly dark political thriller about recent events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by American and British forces.

Recommended for those that enjoy murky political thrillers, Official Secrets gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is interesting but not nearly as brilliant as such films as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or The Constant Gardener.