In his 40+ year career as an actor on screen, born-and-bred New Yorker John Turturro is best known for his memorable supporting turns but outside the films in which he’s directed himself, he has surprisingly few leading credits to his name. Fellow actor-turned-director Noah Segan adds one to his résumé with The Only Living Pickpocket In New York, a well-intentioned but underwhelming character study of a hustler who feels the tides of time turning against him. It’s a worthy theme but across its scant 85-minute runtime, the film doesn’t elaborate on it enough in the screenplay — also by Segan — to give the story richer resonance. This movie is the cinematic embodiment of the trope wherein an urbanite looks out his window at the changing cityscape, shakes his head and laments “this city used to be different…” under his breath.
Turturro stars in the title role (well, sort of; Simon & Garfunkel reference aside, I imagine there are actually other pickpockets still alive in the Big Apple) as Bronx-based thief Harry Lehman. We get a sense of his routine from the jump, as he bumps into a wealthy-looking businessman on the morning subway, lifts his wallet and watch and goes to his pawn shop mover Ben (Steve Buscemi) to see what he can get for the latter. That evening, he spots a mark in Dylan (Will Price), a young gun whose duffel bag Harry lifts from his vintage sports car. It turns out Dylan, the heir of a powerful criminal organization, was the wrong guy from whom to steal. Just because the crypto wallet in Dylan’s duffel has little value to Harry, who doesn’t even carry a cell phone, doesn’t make the almost $1 million in funds loaded on it any less valuable to Dylan. After Harry assumes it’s a worthless knick-knack and sells it, Dylan demands he return the stolen goods or suffer serious consequences.
Though most of The Only Living Pickpocket In New York involves Harry running from shop to shop throughout Manhattan and the stakes are clear, the movie doesn’t much register like a thriller. The laid-back jazzy score from Gary Lionelli and the handsome cinematography by Sam Levy give the proceedings a cosmopolitan, polished feel, despite the setting in the criminal underworld. It brings home the cool confidence that Harry seems to have, being an old hand at this who’s been grifting since before I was in diapers. But in doing so, the film forgoes a more pressing and urgent tone found in the 70s gritty, street-level capers like The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three and Mikey And Nicky upon which it seems to take inspiration. At least the absence of a pressured timbre allows for some nice character moments with the likes of other talented veteran actors like Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito.
With the exception of Will Price as the cocky young mobster, all the performances work and make The Only Living Pickpocket In New York a pretty good hang for a while. Esposito plays Detective Allan Warren, who’s developed a bit of a symbiotic relationship with Harry in the years they’ve known one another. In their first scene together, they meet in a subway car and complain about arthritis and technology before Allan shows Harry some mugshot photos, in the hopes he’ll have info about the perps. Later on, Harry looks to Allan for the address of a pawn shop owner who may have the USB crypto key and Allan “accidentally” pushes his computer monitor towards Harry while going for coffee. I enjoyed their shared energy to the degree that I could’ve watched a whole movie centered around them over the other subplots, like Harry trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter or Harry taking on a protégé.
It’s in trying to tie these various plot threads together into one self-satisfied ending that Segan’s approach is as inelegant as a pickpocket who realizes he’s been caught and instead resorts to mugging. The film has one of those third acts that is mainly comprised of flashbacks to scenes where the main character was secretly working in the background to get the upper hand on the antagonist. But since Turturro is in pretty much every scene in the movie, it’s not a matter of the audience potentially getting distracted by other elements of the story as opposed to willfully obtuse editing. As good as the interplay between Harry and Allan is during their scenes, the proper ending to their story is so ham-fisted that it actually made me chuckle. I’m sure The Only Living Pickpocket In New York will play just fine when it’s available to watch on Netflix in a few months but as a theatrical excursion, it’s not worth the across-town scramble.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
The Cat in the Hat, starring Bill Hader and Matt Berry, is an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic tale about a magical creature who is tasked with cheering up a pair of glum siblings who struggle with their move to a new town.
Wild Horse Nine, starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, finds a pair of CIA agents whose assignment in Easter Island shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat is threatened by interloping from a pair of rebellious students.
Drummer Boy, starring Joel David Smallbone and Lucas Leach, is a historical musical drama set during the Revolutionary War, which finds a set of brothers with divided loyalties between the American and British Armies.