![\"\"](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI lived my life in people\u2019s pockets,\u201d sighs Harry (John Turturro<\/a>), a small-town thief who belongs as much in a museum as he does on the busy streets of New York. Harry is a throwback, and so is The Only Living Pickpocket In New York<\/a>, this modest but really rather mesmerizing and forlorn film, one that\u2019s curated just as much as it is directed. It\u2019s about things past, about things gone, but also things that won\u2019t stay dead as much as society wants that to happen. It\u2019s also a film about vanishing bohemia, and it\u2019s no coincidence that many of the film\u2019s storied leads are played by leading lights of New York\u2019s iconic independent movie scene.<\/p>\n \n\tThe mood is established early on; Harry is the ghost-like presence you were always warned about, his hand in your pockets, his coat buttoned against the cold. In the film\u2019s opening moments, he\u2019s already off to the races; every handbag or wallet is a goal. But even with his advanced instincts, this pro sometimes comes a cropper, as happens when he tries to sell a fake stolen watch (\u201cBut the guy was legit \u2014 he had platinum cards!\u201d). More pathetic than that, it seems that stolen watches aren\u2019t even a thing anymore. \u201cEverything has a clock on it,\u201d deadpans Harry\u2019s regular fence, played by Steve Buscemi<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tIn scenes reminiscent of John Cassavetes\u2019 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Harry digs himself into a hole after lifting a stranger\u2019s bag from his retro car, and this is where the film\u2019s central thesis really kicks in. Henry\u2019s old-school trickery is certainly something to be admired, but in today\u2019s world of CCTV and Google, the slim-Jim phantom of old is a clich\u00e9, and Henry is swiftly tracked down by his victim, Dylan (Will Price) \u2014 the rich, arrogant (but by no means stupid) heat-packing scion of a serious Manhattan crime family \u2014 who threatens what Henry loves and values the most, his seriously ill wife.<\/p>\n \n\tDylan perfectly articulates such generational changes in New York gang culture; he wants his family to \u201cuplevel\u201d to the cyber world, and it\u2019s clear that \u201cthe street\u201d is far beneath him \u2014 Dylan is all about crypto, while Henry doesn\u2019t even have a computer. Thus, Dylan doesn\u2019t take long to find Henry and immediately sends him back to find the most crucial thing that he\u2019s missing, a piece of tech that means nothing to the dinosaurs of Manhattan\u2019s old-school demi-monde but everything to the new disciples of post-money money. Along the way, Henry uses his time to reflect on the very real-seeming end of his life, turning up, uninvited, for an awkward reunion with his estranged daughter.<\/p>\n \n\tDirector Noah Segan<\/a>, so far better known to the cognoscenti as a recurring mascot in the films of Rian Johnson<\/a>, creates a truly impressive and very mature directing debut from all these elements, tapping into the funky flow of Jack Hill\u2019s so-white-yet-so-very-cool blaxploitation movies but, at the same time, winding that vibrancy down into the countdown melancholy of Spike Lee\u2019s very underrated 25th Hour. Indeed, for all its minor-key notes and self-effacing comedy, this is really a very serious film about loss, and while the plight of a petty street thief might seem like the least of our worries, Sagan\u2019s film wants to capture these dark moments; in a Diane Arbus way, before they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York is interesting in that respect, because it talks of quite a taboo subject, which is the way in which criminality informs not just art but society, and the strange, but special romantic attachment we have for criminals while professing to deplore the things they do. It\u2019s a film steeped in nostalgia, for the time when \u201cyou did have the cash or you didn\u2019t have the cash\u201d (a direct quote from Dylan\u2019s surprise-guest grandma, the real, ruthless head of the gang). But it\u2019s also a wonderfully acted love letter to the Manhattan indies that dominated the \u201980s. It\u2019s an early call, but next year\u2019s under-the-radar awards season may well start here; get in early and put Turturro on the ticket.<\/p>\n