Caught Stealing and Relay

 

Darren Aronofsky and David Mackenzie are competing for Best New York chase film currently playing in the cineplexes.

Aronofsky (The Whale, Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) is offering an unhinged rock-em sock-em that gives a nod to Martin Scorsese's feverish nightmare in Lower Manhattan, After Hours (1985). In fact, the star of that little-known gem, Griffin Dunne, is a featured player in Aronofsky's latest film, Caught Stealing, which stars Hollywood It Boy Austin Butler as hunky Hank, a battered California baseball player living in Alphabet City a decade before the Twin Towers fell.

Hank is dating a foxy EMT named Yvonne, played by Zoe Kravitz, and is generally hail-fellow-well-met to the down-but-not-out denizens of his hardscrabble neighborhood, including the spiky Brit punker next door named Russ (a sporty Matt Smith of Dr. Who and The Crown).

Russ leaves his beloved feline companion, Buddy, in Hank's care so that Russ might visit his ailing father in London. While away, Russ's flat is visited by Russian bruisers who after being confronted bash Hank, believing he is Russ's cohort in a criminal enterprise. They think he knows the location of a large payout Russ owes them.

A police detective (Regina King) tells Hank that Russ is involved with several groups of mobsters that the police have been monitoring. They need Hank's help shutting the mobs down. Hank's reluctant involvement pulls him into dark waters where he and everyone around him, including Buddy, are targets. He spends most of the movie trying to avoid capture.

The film is described as a dark comedy -- the darkness being the body count and the comedic elements being Hank's preposterous predicament. It mostly works, banking on Butler's cheekbones and chiseled abs.

Directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), Relay stars Riz Ahmed as an anonymous fixer who goes by the name of Tom. He's part of an organization in New York that parlays deals between whistleblowers and the companies they're prepared to drop a dime on.

Lily James plays Sarah, a biochemical researcher who has documentation that a product about to be released by her former company carries dangerous side-effects for some humans who come in contact with it. She was prepared to go public with her findings but has changed her mind because of the threats she's received.

She wants out, and Tom arranges through an untraceable communication network to coordinate the exchange, secure Sarah's safety and get the company to pay the intermediary $500,000 for making it happen.

Of course, it doesn't happen as planned. Sam Worthington's Dawson and his team try to subvert Tom's plan by intercepting messages so that they might retrieve what was taken and silence Sarah. Tom stays a few steps ahead of Dawson's crew as they crisscross New York City, until forced to improvise by unforeseen complications and turnabouts that some audience members might view as a bridge or two too far in credibility.

Still, Ahmed has an impactful demeanor as he hoofs through the congested alleyways of The Big Apple like a half-back.

Though set in different decades, Caught Stealing and Relay are commenting -- in different ways -- on public and private distrust, heroic loneliness and the elusiveness of enduring happiness.