STACK #254 December 2025

MOVIE FEATURE

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GENRE: Crime comedy RUN TIME: 1h 47m

HANGIN’ TOUGH: CAUGHT STEALING Darren Aronofsky leaves his arty comfort zone behind with Caught Stealing , serving up a wild, comic, action-packed thrill ride that proves he’s just as fearless outside the indie realm as he is within it. Austin Butler

O ne of the most thrilling scenes in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing is watching Austin Butler’s Hank Thompson – a washed-up former high school baseball star - hanging off the side of a six-storey building fire escape as he tries to get into his apartment from the outside. Pursued by vicious gangsters, he’s literally clinging to his life after unwittingly being caught up in a criminal underworld in this gritty, pulpy crime caper set in 1990s New York. And all because he agreed to look after his neighbour’s cat... “The incredible stunt team figured out a way to hang a cable from the top

of the building,” recalls Butler. “It feels more real when you’re actually hanging six storeys up than it does when you’re on a green screen.” If the baby-faced Elvis star doesn’t look like he’d have the chops for such daredevil feats, then he became schooled in action stunts during his portrayal of bloodthirsty Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two . Stunt coordinator Brian Machleit was impressed. “It’s been a wonderful surprise to see how much Austin Butler is capable of doing. Not what he’s willing to do - what he’s capable of doing. That’s two different things. It’s allowed me to really up the level. I feel a

lot more comfortable telling Darren that yes, I can hang Austin off a building, I can have him run through cars. I can put that man through anything and still make sure he goes home safe at the end of the day,” he recalls. In fact, Butler performed all his own stunts in the film – the filmmakers never calling in his double. “Action’s gotten out of control – everyone’s trying to outdo the next person and you get sequences that defy physics,” says Aronofsky. “I wanted our action to be grounded and truthful, because I think there’s something more dangerous about that type of violence.” Gill Pringle

• Caught Stealing is out Dec 17

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Honey Don’t, Snatch, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels

NOBODY 2 Sometimes the most dangerous place for a dad is a family holiday. And for all you dads out there – don’t you just know it? GENRE: Action Thriller RUN TIME: 1h 29m

B ut when family time gets boring, you can always live vicariously in the company of Breaking Bad star Bob Odenkirk returning as suburban husband, father, and workaholic assassin Hutch Mansell in this new chapter of 2021 action-thriller blockbuster, Nobody . Much as he likes the slam-bang action of his “job,” Hutch and his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) find themselves overworked and drifting apart. So, they decide to take their kids – 17-year-old son Brady and 12-year old daughter Sammy - on a mini-break to Wild Bill’s Majestic Midway and Waterpark. But a family vacation, it turns out, may be the one thing that can throw a skilled assassin off his game. “Even James Bond would be brought to his knees at the centre of a sh-tty family vacation,” says producer Braden Aftergood. “No matter how much of a killer you are,

you’ll deal with bad food, bad hotels, long lines, stinky water parks. There’s no amount

Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath, Bob Odenkirk, Christopher Lloyd and Connie Nielsen

this job and have a reason for it,” says the actor, who must face off against Sharon Stone as his latest deadly foe in Nobody 2 . For the first film, Odenkirk spent two years getting in the best shape of his life to play Hutch,

of special-op training that can overcome these very human things we experience.” “At the end of the first film, we knew about

but this time he wanted to go even harder, embodying the physicality of a man who uses his body as a full-time weapon. “Even though I am older, I was able to do more extensive fights and more moves in this piece.” Gill Pringle

Hutch’s violent nature, his abilities, and his connection to big, evil secret-agent stuff, so we needed to work with that,” says Odenkirk, 63, who also has two kids in real life. “We’ve established a character who secretly/not-so-secretly enjoys beating the living sh-t out of others. He’s happy to do

• Nobody 2 is out Dec 3

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Monkey Man, John Wick, Sisu, The Equalizer, Wrath of Man

28 DECEMBER 2025

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