Summer Screen & Stream, Weekend 15: CAUGHT STEALING & THE TOXIC AVENGER
One last end of summer double-header drink for the road
In an effort to keep this newsletter timely, I aim to cover 1 new theatrical release (seen on the Big Screen) and 1 new streaming release (watched at home on PVOD or SVOD) every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That’s 15 weekends, 30 films in total, a whole lotta trips to the Alamo, and very few, if any, to an actual beach. Dual reviews will drop sometime Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, depending on my real-life workload, but definitely before each weekend is over (reminder: I am not a paid critic with early access to pre-release screenings or streaming links). That’s the Letterburched Summer Screen & Stream guarantee!
It’s the final Summer Screen & Stream weekend of 2025, and word on the street is there’s two dudes so pissed that it’s ending that they’re wielding blunt objects. Austin Butler swings an aluminum Louisville Slugger in the comedic crime thriller Caught Stealing, and Peter Dinklage is ready to joust injustice with his trusty mop handle in The Toxic Avenger. Let’s find out what’s got these two fellas so damn steamed…
Caught Stealing (2025)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Runtime: 107 minutes. Watched: On the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse
The Gist: Ex-baseball player and current alcoholic bartender Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) becomes the unwitting target of Russian mobsters, Puerto Rican drug dealers, Hasidic hit men, and the corrupt NYPD after reluctantly agreeing to cat-sit for his punk neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) and finding a hidden key to millions of dollars in little Bud’s litterbox.
The Good: As a director, Darren Aronofsky is very hit or miss for me. Loved The Wrestler, Black Swan, and Mother! Hated The Fountain, Noah, and The Whale. Liked parts of Pi and Requiem for a Dream but also found them grating, repetitive, and music video-ish. I’d argue Caught Stealing is more hit than miss. In baseball terms, let’s call it a solid double or triple. Aronofsky does a respectable job recreating the late ‘90s East Village, both in the look and the feel. It may not be as big of a feat as Tarantino recreating late ‘60s Los Angeles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but still, credit where credit is due. Much of that credit should probably go to cinematographer Matthew Libatique though, who after this and Highest 2 Lowest has pretty much cemented himself as the go-to guy when you want to shoot “the real NYC.”
All the actors in Stealing are solid and engaging across the board. Austin Butler is obviously being positioned as the next Brad Pitt, and this was his first performance where I had to admit: “Yeah, I can finally see it.” Zoë Kravitz usually doesn’t do much for me, but she was quite good here playing Hank’s protective tough-cookie girlfriend, Yvonne. Regina King as a dirty cop was a welcome surprise—she should play more bad guys. As should Bad Bunny, who’s much better here than as Adam Sandler’s amiable caddie in Happy Gilmore 2. I also never would’ve pegged Griffin Dunne for a Hell’s Angel type, but okay, I’ll bite. As far as human actors go though (more on the cat in just a second), the MVP had to be the guy who played Russian thug “Microbe” (Nikita Kukushkin). When that dude kicked the ever-living shit out of Butler’s kidneys, I really believed it. Without a doubt the best shit-kicking in an NYC-set movie since DeNiro punted the crap out of Billy Bats’ ribcage to Donovan’s “Atlantis” in Goodfellas.
The Stealing script? It’s nothing special. Just the usual innocent guy in over his head, getting chased all over town by various crime factions pursuing some McGuffin you forget about for most of the movie. I didn’t read the 2004 Charlie Huston book Caught Stealing is based on, but I’m guessing it’s similarly run-of-the-mill. No standout dialogue. Character types you’ve seen many times before, though rendered competently enough to feel something akin to real people. The screenplay probably won’t win any WGA awards, but it provides a sturdy enough clothesline for a pleasingly skuzzy, low-rent tour of New York. Aronofsky shoots these familiar scenes with enough energy to keep everything moving at an agreeably frenetic clip. Also, he doesn’t force his hand too much with the ‘90s nostalgia bait—no egregiously on-the-nose alt-rock needle drops (at least not that I heard) and a pretty good score by the band Idles.
The only decade-specific questions that sprung to mind while watching: 1) Were guys really wearing boxer briefs in 1998? I feel like that was still the tidy whites or regular boxers era, but maybe I’m misremembering. 2) Would low-income characters like Hank and Yvonne really have cell phones yet? I didn’t get my first chunky cell phone until around 2000, but then I’ve always been a late adopter when it comes to the tech.
The Bad: As mentioned, Austin Butler’s Hank gets a real working over in this movie. He’s punched dead in the face and has his torso kicked in multiple times, to the point that he ends up in the hospital to have one of his kidneys removed. Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms about seeing Butler on the receiving end of some harsh brutality, but within a day or so after his hospital stay, he’s running around town again, climbing on fire escapes, getting into more fights, binge drinking to the point of blackout, and losing only a few surgery staples in the process. I know he’s a strapping young guy and an ex-athlete, but to repeat, THE GUY JUST LOST A MAJOR ORGAN. I feel like Hank’s recovery in Caught Stealing may have been a bit, um, “expedited.” Show me some side effects or a little more fatigue at least, not to mention the MAJOR WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS this guy should be experiencing from having to give up the booze cold turkey.
Speaking of abstinence, I could’ve done with a little less of the Drucker Brothers schtick. As the uzi-toting Hasidic hit men Lipa and Shmully, Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Schreiber are both fine, but did we really need to sidetrack the breakneck pacing to stop and go have Shabbos dinner with them back home in Brighton Beach? I guess this was supposed to be hilarious—seeing Carol Kane (who I adore) mother-hen Butler’s Hank to death as he stares down, bruised and battered, at the giant matzah ball floating in his soup. But that scene and the one in which the Druckers mass murder nearly everyone at a Russian supper club are the only ones which made me feel like I was watching a Guy Ritchie movie about New York instead of one set in the actual NYC. My instinct is that these scenes were Aronofsky servicing his own filmography more than the story, a sort of nudge-nudge wink-wink callback to his breakout film Pi, which came out in ’98 and also largely featured the Hasidic community. I actually started to wonder if he signed onto this movie—an outlier in terms of tone and genre on his resume—just so he could shoot those specific scenes.
Okay, so let’s talk about that darn cat already. Initially, I felt really bad for the feline(s) that played “Bud” in this. Not unlike Butler, the poor little guy endures a shit-kicking by Russian mobsters (mercifully offscreen) and whole lot of jostling around in bags during the course of the movie. He also has to wear a tiny cast and hobble around on three legs in one or two scenes. It got to the point where all I could focus on during the latter parts of the movie was that damn cat in the bag and his presumed safety. Where is “Bud” right now? Did Butler leave him in the Hasidic guys’ car without the window rolled down? Etc., etc. Then I read this NY Times article, and my concerns were mostly allayed. Sounds like “Tonic,” the li’l chap who played “Bud,” was a real pro. If this is a species-free contest, then Tonic wins the Best Actor MVP for Caught Stealing, hands down. Or paws down. Austin Butler may be the New Brad Pitt, but that little tabby mofo is, fo sho, our New Marlon Brando.
The Whippy: Who says popcorn movies can’t teach you new things? Case in point, I didn’t know that there was a UK rip-off version of Mister Softee until Matt Smith’s British punk Russ sees one of the signature ice cream trucks in Flushing Meadows and yells out “Hey, Mr. Whippy!” I have so many questions now. What songs do Mr. Whippy trucks play in England? Is it as maddening as the Mister Softee jingle that nearly drove me to homicide at my last apartment in Prospect Heights? The same truck that arrived every day at exactly 3 p.m., parking right in front of the building and playing the same repetitive ditty at top volume for an hour straight? I guess I’ll never know for sure until I rent an overpriced flat in London. In the meantime, I’ll savor this newly acquired knowledge, as well as the Scorsese After Hours shout-out.
Letter Grade: B+
The Toxic Avenger (2023)
Directed by Macon Blair. Runtime: 103 minutes. Watched: On a smaller screen at the Alamo Drafthouse
The Gist: After getting pushed into a vat of radioactive slop at his old workplace, BTH, terminally ill janitor Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) transforms into The Toxic Avenger and must use his glowing mop to take down corrupt CEO Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) and rescue his own kidnapped son (Jacob Tremblay) with a little help from an investigative reporter (Taylour Paige) looking into the BTH Corporation’s rampant pollution and environmental chicanery.
The Good: As you might already know, this remake/reboot of the iconic 1984 Troma Films exploitation classic played some festivals in the Fall of 2023 and then sat on a shelf looking for a distributor for the past two years. I wouldn’t call myself a diehard Troma fan, but I did see and enjoy the first three ‘80s Toxie movies on VHS as a teenager, so I was curious when I first heard about the reboot, especially when I learned that Peter Dinklage was playing the titular Avenger. It’s an inspired casting choice, and I liked director Macon Blair’s 2017 Netflix movie (I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore), so I wondered at the time what the hold-up was. Initial festival reviews seemed pretty good, but then there were claims in the trades that the film was “unreleasable.” Something was obviously rotten in the state of Tromaville, but what exactly?
Well, now that I’ve seen the final result two years later, I have my answer. The Toxic Avenger Unrated is, in fact, releasable (I saw it in a theater after all), but it’s also a hot mess. Which is not to say that it’s an entirely bad mess. It’s just a very “busy” movie with a lot of jokes and ideas thrown at the wall like so much irradiated goop, many of them oozing to the floor without making much of an impact. Since director Blair seemingly felt no obligation to rein in his more scattershot narrative impulses, neither will I try to put together a cohesive argument for what’s “good” about the new and not-necessarily-improved Toxie. Instead, I’ll just offer up several aspects that amused me while watching…
1.) A lively addition to the new Toxie’s “superpowers”—his urine is now highly acidic, so much so that when he’s imprisoned in chains, he can flip over, pee on himself, and micturate his way to freedom by burning through his metal bindings. We even get to see a glimpse of his toxic wee-wee in the process!
2.) There’s a repeated darkly funny gag wherein Dinklage’s character is receiving a grim diagnosis from his doctor about some unnamed “brain cloud” disease but all the most important parts of the doctor’s prognosis are drowned out by a VERY LOUD JACKHAMMER pounding away outside. Talk about NYC flashbacks!
3.) It’s great to see Julia Davis again, here playing Kevin Bacon’s assistant “Kissy.” Feels like it’s been far too long since Nighty Night. I’m sure she’s done tons of stuff since the early 2000s. I guess I just haven’t recognized her in any of it.
4.) Elijah Wood seems to be basically reprising Danny DeVito’s role in Batman Returns in this, minus the extreme pot belly and penguin entourage. He does manage a “monstercore” band called The Killer Nutz though, which I’m not so sure about as far as reliable business associates go.
The Bad: There’s quite a bit that’s “bad” about the 2025 the 2023 Toxic Avenger. But again, I feel zero obligation to organize Macon B’s mess of a movie into proper paragraph form. Instead, here’s my laundry list of minor grievances directly from my post-screening notes…
1.) The whole enterprise feels like a misguided comic book based on the 1984 movie that I’d never bother to read. It’s missing many of the crude DIY elements that made the first three Toxie movies so much dumb fun. I read Blair’s early claim that this movie was mostly achieved using practical effects, but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. For the most part, the gore is poorly rendered CGI, a complaint which I’ve made WAY too many times this summer about FAR too many other films to go into further detail. Given its mid-’80s low-budget provenance, I was hoping the new Toxic Avenger would buck that trend. “Nope to hope,” unfortunately.
2.) I miss Toxie’s blind girlfriend, Sara, from the first movie (Andree Maranda). More than that, I miss Claire (the fun-tastic Phoebe Legere), Toxie’s same blind girlfriend but with a different name in Parts 2 & 3. Instead, we get a rather humorless Taylour Paige as Winston/Toxie’s platonic female buddy/helper in the reboot. This is a serious good-times downgrade for a movie that originally started out as a teen sex comedy with both horror and superhero spoof elements. Toxie needs a legit love interest, dammit. He’s the Superman of Caustic Sludge. Where is his loopy Lois Lane?!
3.) Not a fan of how weaponized Toxie’s mop has become. In this new movie, it’s like some kind of laser torch that can easily cut through people’s heads and chins, which feels a bit like cheating. I preferred it when it was just a mop that Melvin/Toxie happened to be very handy with, post-transformation. Also, does anyone really use deck mops anymore? If there’s ever a sequel to this movie (doubtful), he should get himself a Swiffer (with or without laser-like capabilities) to keep up with the times.
4.) There’s an insane amount of cheeky onscreen title overkill in this movie. Consider yourself warned. You will not only have to hear and see many clunky jokes; you will also have to read them.
5.) Speaking of overkill, Kevin Bacon should probably take a break from “edgy” horror movie villains for a while. I love the guy, and Bacon seems to be having a whale of a time *hamming* it up here, but after this, MaXXXine, and two or three other movies I didn’t see, he seems to be in mortal danger of repetition. Six Degrees of Typecasting, if you will.
The Whizzy: Something else I learned this week at the movies, this time during the Alamo pre-show. Did you know that Peter Dinklage used to be in a punk/ska/rap band named “Whizzy” in the mid-‘90s? Supposedly, they used to play in the Village quite a bit. Is it possible that I once saw a Whizzy show without knowing it? Did they ever perform at The Continental off Third Ave and St. Mark’s? If so, then chances are good that I, at one point in time, danced to the Dink. Here’s a link to an early Whizzy demo to get you skankin’ too.
Letter Grade: C
And that’s a wrap on the very last Letterburched Summer Screen & Stream! All in all, it was a better summer movie season than I initially anticipated, the B+ or above standouts being 28 Years Later, Eddington, Weapons, The Surfer, F1, The Naked Gun, and just under the wire, Caught Stealing. After 30 films logged and more than 15 trips to the Alamo, I have to admit I’m a little burned out on new releases and will now be taking a break from movie-going for at least a couple of weeks. I may even cancel my Alamo Season Pass, who knows. I do have to give the Texas-based chain some credit though—for the first time since Memorial Day, I didn’t see a single Smashing Machine trailer this weekend at either Alamo location. Is it possible that Alamo Corporate reads Letterburched, listened to my complaints, and decided to spare me? Better yet, spare Benny Safdie? Maybe. It’s not all roses though (or The Roses, another remake which I’m skipping for now). Unfortunately, I did see one trailer for Marty Supreme. I guess no matter where you go, you can never get away entirely Safdie-free.
Happy Labor Day, everyone. And as always, thanks for reading.
