Caught Stealing is low on romance and high on violence

New York writer-director Darren Aronofsky is nobody’s first choice for an entertaining action-comedy romance.

His previous, rather bleak films – like Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, Noah and the rest – tend to attract comments like “harsh realities”, “dispiriting struggles” and “waking nightmares”. And these are from his friends!

But filmmakers don’t live on “harsh reality” alone, as I’m sure Aronofsky’s bank manager has reminded him.

So now he’s turned to a pulp thriller called Caught Stealing, featuring stars of the moment Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz as a crazy couple of kids living on the Lower East Side.

Hank and Yvonne may not have much, but they do have each other. Caught Stealing, incidentally, is a baseball term. Years ago, Hank was a would-be ball player until tragedy stepped in.

Now he’s a barman, living next door to an English punk-rocker called Russ.

You’ve probably guessed, this is where the story starts. Matt Smith – some distance from Doctor Who, or indeed The Crown’s Prince Philip – plays Russ in a ludicrous Mohawk hairdo.

He leaves his cat with Hank, with a pair of Russian no-goodniks hot on his trail. When they can’t find Russ, they take it out on Hank.

Girlfriend Yvonne takes Hank to hospital to be patched up, and it soon turns out that the Russians aren’t the only ones searching for whatever Russ is hiding.

There’s a Puerto Rican hit man, played inevitably by Puerto Rican rapper turned actor Bad Bunny.

Belatedly, Hank and Yvonne go to the police, led by Regina King, who seems a bit expensive and award-winning for such a supporting role.

She tells Hank that there are plenty more bad guys on his trail, and that in an Aronofsky film, there’s likely to be blood. I think we’d guessed as much.

And now Russ has belatedly returned from London, and he explains to Hank all we need to know. That is, it’s all about money. A lot of money that no one seems in any mood to share.

What is it about New York directors that they all think they’re Martin Scorsese, even when they’re making what purports to be a fun, action romp?

There’s wholesale slaughter, fresh-faced Butler is soon covered in cuts and bruises, while Smith spends much of his screen time sporting a kiwi-egg-sized bump on the head.

I suppose you can’t blame director Aronofsky entirely for the rapidly building body count of Caught Stealing.

It’s based on a novel by Charlie Huston, who also wrote the script. Aronofsky just made sure you were always aware who was getting killed and, usually, by whom.

Unforgivably, among the casualties is anyone Hank might possibly run off into the sunset with. This is a film that assumes romance is dispensable and replaceable.

For New York directors, money – particularly a big bag full of actual cash – is far more exciting than a passing fling, even if that excitement doesn’t appear to get through to the cast.

Good actors like Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio – and King, who finds herself with more to do than we expected – do what they can. But they let us know that the only money they’re interested in is coming after the movie’s over.

There aren’t a lot of rules in a hard-boiled action thriller, but one of them is this. Don’t kill too many people before the end. Maybe you can get away with it when you’re making “waking nightmares” involving “harsh realities”, Darren. The rest of us just want something to eat popcorn to - a love story would be good.