Movie review
August 26, 2025 · 107 min · R
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
Detective Roman is gender-flipped and race-swapped from a white male in the 2004 novel to a Black woman played by Regina King. The villain brothers are also ethnicity-swapped to Hasidic Jewish gangsters. These are clear, audience-visible canon changes. The core story stays a straight 1990s NYC crime thriller about ex-baseball player Hank Thompson surviving gangsters after cat-sitting — no identity arcs, no girlboss rebellion, no activist sermons, no political lectures. The narrative is pure personal survival and underworld chaos.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Caught Stealing.
Woke representation / casting
Visible source-material swaps (Detective Roman gender/race flip plus villain ethnicity changes) in diverse 1990s NYC setting; no unearned dominance or story-logic mismatch.
Woke political dialogue
None reported in plot, reviews, or comparisons.
Identity-driven story themes
Pure survival/crime story; zero identity or representation plotlines.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Standard corrupt-cop and gangster tropes; no modern activist reframing of patriarchy, whiteness, systemic oppression, or Western institutions.
Woke character or canon changes
Clear gender/race swap for key supporting antagonist Detective Roman (male in novel) and villain ethnicity changes.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Only isolated niche mentions of the swaps; no significant or mainstream backlash claiming forced identity politics.
Creator track record context
Aronofsky’s environmental allegories noted but no identity-driven pattern; this project has none.
Production
