The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is deeply sad. Why don’t more movies try to do this? We tend to expect other things when we go to the multiplex, and even when we do invest in a tragedy, we often want something shattering and powerful. This throwback movie doesn’t offer anything like that, just the sort of pleasure that you get from hearing a great sad song. That’s not the only thing that this low-budget caper film has going for it, but the gentle sadness was the abiding impression that I took away, and much of it comes from a great performance by John Turturro.
He portrays Harry Lehman, an aging career criminal who drifts through NYC’s subways and streets taking people’s wallets and smartphones, even though he himself can barely work a TV remote. One day, he steals from the wrong guy: A young man named Dylan (Will Price) parks his restored 1969 Plymouth Barracuda near him, and Harry comes away with his wallet and a card containing a USB stick. Neither he nor his pawnshop fence Ben (Steve Buscemi) know what that is, but in the time it takes for Harry to take the card from the Bronx to Chinatown, Dylan and his goons have smashed in Ben’s pawnshop and beaten him badly. The card is an electronic key to a cryptocurrency account holding almost $1 million, and while the young man is a thug, he’s no fool. He tracks down Harry and gives him a little more than four hours to bring the key back or he’ll kill Harry’s catatonic wife (Karina Arroyave).
Writer-director Noah Segan is an actor who has been in almost every movie by his buddy Rian Johnson. This is his debut as a filmmaker, and it is a sparkling one. He revels in the sleight of hand that Harry exhibits when he practices his craft — watch the efficient yet showy way he wipes his fingerprints off the inside and outside of the Barracuda. Segan’s camera makes us see Harry’s environment through his eyes: A tidy piece of plotting allows Harry to break into a locked storage room at a secondhand electronics shop, and even though he still doesn’t know what the card does, he quickly locates it amid the clutter. The tidy set pieces are indicative of the movie as a whole. The brief 88-minute run time contains very little fat, as Harry moves from Manhattan to Queens and back to his apartment in the Bronx while checking in with an NYPD detective (Giancarlo Esposito) who is a friendly adversary.
The director does lose a step toward the end. Harry visits his angry, estranged daughter (Tatiana Maslany) one last time, and as well-acted the scene is, we’ve seen it in a hundred different movies. His climactic encounter with Dylan’s grandmother and mafia boss (Jamie Lee Curtis) is thin stuff, too — a briefer appearance and stronger dialogue would have made better use of the Oscar-winner. Yet even here there’s some good stuff, as a flashback reveals one last heist of Harry’s that allows him to go meekly to his death.
Turturro imbues it all with a shabby sort of elegance that fits this character who has filched his way through a changing New York for longer than he should have. The note of resignation to his fate here pairs up beautifully with Gary Lionelli’s melancholy jazz score to paint a portrait of a smart and talented man whose time has come to an end. This character actor who has been doing splendid work since the 1990s has somehow never quite received the recognition due him, and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is a lovely showcase for his abilities.
