\n\tRarely does an opening song choice so precisely define the mood of a film like LCD Soundsystem\u2019s exquisitely tortured anthem \u201cNew York, I Love You but You\u2019re Bringing Me Down\u201d over the opening frames of writer-director Noah Segan\u2019s quiet knockout, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. James Murphy\u2019s melancholy vocals capture the unlivable but unleavable push-pull of the city, wistfully looking back at its grubby past while lamenting the shiny soullessness and skyrocketing exclusivity of its present.<\/p>\n
\n\tThose sentiments seem to come directly from John Turturro<\/a> as Harry Lehman, a nimble-fingered thief with a watchful gaze, always scoping a potential score on the streets or subways.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n \tContemplative, cool-headed and transfixing.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) \n\tThe song also suggests the movie\u2019s pervasive subtextual nostalgia for the analog past \u2014 felt by the small-time career criminal, but no less by an old-school detective being shoved aside to make way for the clever kids in the cyber unit, by a crusty pawn shop owner fencing stolen goods or a steely crime matriarch, taking care of business and adapting to the times, but not shy about admitting she misses the bad old days.<\/p>\n \n\tTurturro is unshowy but magnificent in his best film role in years, an honorable hustler who still carries himself with dignity despite a lifetime of regrets and a world gradually leaving him behind. At least until he unwittingly targets the wrong mark and has to think and act fast to protect the people he cares about and secure his own sorrowful redemption.<\/p>\n \n\tHarry could be described as a counterpart on the other side of the law from John Stone, the wearily disheveled attorney played by Turturro in HBO\u2019s riveting limited series, The Night Of<\/a> \u2014 even if Harry has a greater appreciation for good tailoring. What makes Segan\u2019s movie so intoxicating, however, is not just the depth of its inside-and-out central character study but the granular textures of the world Harry inhabits and the incisively drawn secondary characters played by a deep bench of very fine and impeccably cast actors.<\/p>\n \n\tSegan has clearly been paying attention during his long association with Rian Johnson, who first cast him in Brick and has found roles for him in pretty much everything since. He moved into directing with a segment of the 2019 horror anthology, Scare Package, following in 2022 with his first solo feature, the Shudder vampire flick Blood Relatives. Segan\u2019s latest is a complete swerve into more nuanced genre territory and more complex storytelling, not to mention a singularly great New York movie. The hypnotic, patiently held closing shot alone will strike a chord with natives, transplants and ex-residents alike.<\/p>\n \n\tThe opening scene is a model of narrative economy. A well-heeled businessman (John Gallagher Jr.) applies a spritz of cologne, slips on his chunky Philippe Patek watch and exits his upscale apartment building, heading for the subway when no cabs materialize. All we see is a quick shot of peak-hour strap-hangers packed in tight, with Harry close behind the guy. Cut to the end of a lunch meeting, when the businessman reaches for his wallet and finds it gone.<\/p>\n \n\tHarry obviously has been at this game since he was a young man, when more people carried thick wads of cash. Still, he scrapes by, offloading resaleable items through his old friend Ben (an endearingly spiky Steve Buscemi<\/a>) and laughing off the suggestion of tech-savvy young scammer Eve (Victoria Moroles) that he should shift to online theft.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile he\u2019s not exactly Robin Hood, Harry is an oddly principled man considering how he makes his living. He believes in circulating his stolen dough where it matters \u2014 whether it\u2019s a healthcare worker at the facility that looks after his nonverbal, disabled wife Rosie (Karina Arroyave) during the day; or a neighbor in their Bronx apartment building who looks in on her when she\u2019s at home and Harry steps out to ply his trade.<\/p>\n \n\tTurturro gives Harry a sad-eyed appearance offset by a frequently jokey manner. But it\u2019s the thoughtfulness and resourcefulness of a man whose cerebral cogs are constantly turning that defines him.<\/p>\n \n\tOne of the most poignant aspects of his performance is the way his face is transformed by love and devotion when he\u2019s with Rosie \u2014 gently brushing her hair; carrying her up multiple flights of stairs and then returning for her wheelchair when the elevator is out of order; cheerfully nattering away in one-sided conversations; or spinning \u201cNative New Yorker\u201d on vinyl and goofily dancing around the room serenading her.<\/p>\n \n\tThings go wrong for Harry when he unwittingly steals from the swaggering young scion of a crime family, Dylan (punchy live-wire Will Price), lifting a gym bag from the kid\u2019s car that contains a luxury watch, guns and a USB card loaded with a fortune in cryptocurrency. Harry has no idea what it is and nor does Ben, whose dinosaur desktop is about 500 upgrades short of the capability necessary to read the thing. Ben sends him to another fence in Chinatown (Kelvin Han Yee), who takes the USB and a few other items off Harry\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n \n\tDylan and his posse are well-connected, so it takes them relatively little time to track down Harry using CCTV footage. Threatening to harm Rosie if he doesn\u2019t deliver, Dylan gives Harry just a few hours to retrieve the USB and return it to him.<\/p>\n \n\tWatching The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, you are reminded of how rarely we now get to see movies fully shot on locations in the city and how there really is no substitute for the real thing.<\/p>\n \n\tCinematographer Sam Levy, whose long string of credits includes Frances Ha, Lady Bird and His Three Daughters<\/a>, captures the bodegas, the subway trains and platforms, the tenements, storefronts and bustling street life with crispness but also a slightly rough-hewn, unvarnished quality, heightening the kinship with gritty New York movies of the \u201870s.<\/p>\n \n\tHarry\u2019s against-the-clock quest to ensure Rosie\u2019s safety takes him back to Chinatown and from there to Brooklyn. Segan\u2019s tight plotting amplifies the necessity for anyone in Harry\u2019s profession of being able to come up with solutions on the fly. One such instance is an amusing bit of improvisation in which he gets backup by greasing the palm of a panhandler played by Aida Turturro.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s also a very moving interlude during which Harry, claiming to be \u201cin the neighborhood,\u201d goes to Queens to see his estranged daughter Kelly, beautifully played by Tatiana Maslany<\/a> as a knot of wounded anger. It\u2019s that strong scene, and Harry\u2019s contrition, that plant the idea of him preparing to make his exit. The encounter with Kelly \u2014 which reverberates in a lovely moment later on \u2014 is made even more touching by the heavily embellished account of it he shares with Rosie.<\/p>\n
Cast: John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Steve Buscemi, Lori Tan Chinn, Kelvin Han Yee, Karina Arroyave, John Gallagher Jr., Victoria Moroles, Jack Mulhern, Michael Hsu Rosen, Aida Turturro, Mark Cayne
Director-screenwriter: Noah Segan
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 28 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n