Directed and written by: Noah Segan
Starring: John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Karina Arroyave, Victoria Moroles, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, and Giancarlo Esposito
Runtime: 88 minutes
‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’: The Academy may offer Turturro an Oscar nomination. He delivers one of the year’s best performances.
Harry Lehman (John Turturro) has lived and worked in New York City his whole life.
He enjoys his job, and after decades of reps, Harry has mastered his trade.
Harry’s dedicated, chosen profession is called out in the title of director/writer Noah Segan’s “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.”
A career criminal, he pays the bills for his Bronx apartment – which he shares with his wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave) – by striding across the streets and subways of The Big Apple and looking for marks.
In the opening scene, Segan, cinematographer Sam Levy, and Turturro demonstrate a prime example - an effective, establishing moment - of Harry’s aptitude for covert theft and the consequences for a victim.
The man has skills!
And so do Segan, Turturro, and the rest of the cast and crew of “Pickpocket”, a captivating crime story that is both a pleasant cinematic stroll and a stressful race against time.
As far as strolls and races, Segan and Levy’s camera follows Harry all over the city with newsstands, subway stops, chain-link fences, the fronts of blue-collar shops, small sets of stairs leading into apartment buildings, and one reach into the suburbs as a big-city backdrop.
It’s just a guess, but Harry’s traveling-by-foot trips may run 20 or 30 minutes on-screen out of the movie’s 88-minute runtime. He walks with intention and purpose in NY, and the effect reaches nostalgic feelings of Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) in “Tootsie” (1982), Ratso (Hoffman again) in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), and, more recently, Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) in “Uncut Gems” (2019).
(Speaking of nostalgia, composer Gary Lionelli pairs Harry and the rest of the cast with a catchy throwback ‘70s score reminiscent of “Shaft” (1971) or “Starsky & Hutch” (1975-1979), even though “Pickpocket” is set in the present day. And note that the year 2026 and its current technologies may be the prime reason why Harry is the only living pickpocket in New York or anywhere else.)
The Safdie brothers’ “Uncut Gems” certainly shares similar vibes. Still, that flick is more stressful than trying to land a 747 without a driver’s license, let alone a pilot’s license. “Pickpocket” doesn’t reach that height of anxiety, but we still feel stress for Harry.
While Howard, in “Gems”, frequents jewelry stores to look for deals, Harry pops into questionable pawn shops with daily catches of loot and hopes to cash in, including his longtime pal Ben’s (the always reliable Steve Buscemi) establishment. Even though Ben must make a buck too, Harry and he share a sturdy friendship after years of trading stolen merchandise for cash.
An outside force, however, disrupts this routine: Harry steals from the wrong person (Will Price), and harsh consequences could await him. Hence, this interruption creates the aforementioned race against the clock, and our casually sly but always deliberate thief becomes hurried in his movements and intentions.
Harry is a flawed human being. He commits larceny (nearly) daily, and he’s made plenty of mistakes over his 60-something years on Planet Earth. However, he’s a soft-spoken, pacifist (at least as we see him now), and he deeply cares for Rosie.
Rosie is a key character to help develop audience empathy for Harry, even though the man wouldn’t think twice about swiping your wallet. He does not seem to have many friends. The movie’s cast numbers are slightly lean, but Ben and his granddaughter, Eve (Victoria Moroles), love him, and a police detective (Giancarlo Esposito) and a nurse show him respect.
He’s lived a life of crime with regrets, but it is his only money-making path. The years weigh on him, and we see the long, heavy toil circle around his eyes and the grey paint his healthy thatch of hair. In addition to the effective long shots of Harry marching across the city, Segan and Levy offer frequent close-ups of him, as his eyes lock on his next victim, he pleads for a better deal, or he seems weary with the grind.
Turturro is here for all of it, seemingly giving every bit of himself to Harry.
Naturally, Harry is willing to take it, and in turn, The Academy may offer Turturro an Oscar nomination. John delivers one of the year’s best performances.
Jeff’s ranking
3.5 / 4 stars
