Turturro shines in engaging, poignant Pickpocket
Harry is a creature of habit. Prowling the streets of New York City, constantly on the lookout for an open bag or a glimpse of a wallet, the pickpocket is a master at lifting small valuables from his unsuspecting marks. Yet, he and his skill set are antiquated. In an age in which no one carries cash, credit cards can be quickly disabled and phones require passwords, his pickings have become slim. He’s well aware he’s become an anachronism, but there’s nothing else he can do. Old dogs and Harry are incapable of learning new tricks.
This is but one problem Harry (John Tuturro) has to contend with in Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, an engrossing character study of a man content to run in place. He, like so many of his cohorts, has one foot buried in the past, with the other begrudgingly tiptoeing in the present.
Harry keeps feelings out of his work. There’s nothing personal in what he does. The people he steals from are simply a means to an end, the vehicles through which he survives. To be sure, some are more lucrative than others, but Harry never goes out of his way to target a big fish. He has his invalid wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave) to think of. Which is why when he has an unexpectedly large haul after boosting Dylan (Will Price), a brash young man looking to be taken down a notch, he can’t help but celebrate a bit. Little does Harry know, this is the last guy you want to steal from.
Once our antihero realizes he’s pinched the wrong mark, the film becomes a running clock movie as he’s forced to track down what he’s stolen and fenced to stop a dire consequence from occurring. It’s a rather standard narrative device but Turturro’s intensity supplies a mounting sense of dread that Segan’s pacing defies. The stakes steadily rise as Harry comes up against one dead end after another. It’s never more evident that he’s burned all of his bridges then when he visits his estranged daughter, Kelly (Tatianna Maslany), his too-late apologies no match for her long-suppressed fury.
There’s a comfort and sense of joy in watching old pros at work and Segan’s veteran cast allows the viewer that privilege. Turturro gives a quiet, complex performance, his wonderfully expressive face one of sympathy, cunning and dread at different points, all done with effective restraint. As always, he commands our attention with his unassuming yet distinctive presence, our sympathies with Harry from the start, despite his slightly skewed sense of morality.
Seeing Turturro go toe-to-toe with his old Do the Right Thing co-star Giancarlo Esposito or fellow The Big Lebowski actor Steve Buscemi results in some beautiful movie moments suffused with realism and humanity. As Detective Warren, the former brings a sense of well-earned fatigue to the role. This is a man who’s seen it all but like Harry, carries little in the way of personal animosity toward the people he deals with. Their conversations are of two old friends, not adversaries. As for Buscemi, his Ben is the fence Harry has relied on for years, shooting straight with the thief regarding the loot he brings in. There’s an uncommon trust between the two, an odd sense of family having sprung up between them.
Each of the three recognize a kindred spirit in the others. They all fondly remember and long for their shared past, a time that, in retrospect seems simpler, more honorable, more joyful. Whether their era was ever truly like that is open to debate, this vision likely a collective, rose-colored set of memories. No matter; they’ve earned to right to remember it as such. Their delusions serve to justify their colored pasts and present grievances. Unfortunately, time has run out on them with Harry being the first to realize it in the starkest of terms. In the back of his mind, he always knew his life would likely come to a bad end. Ultimately, Pickpocket reveals itself to be a cautionary tale as, like Harry, too many of us fail to realize the final chapter of our lives comes suddenly and way too soon. In Theaters.
Clayface deceptively good
With the exception of Spider-Man, the only superhero with a rogue’s gallery to match the webslinger is Batman. The Caped Crusader’s roster of bad guys is so deep, you could name 30 of them and still have plenty to choose from. James Gunn’s approach to bringing the DC Comics’ characters to the big screen has been a curious one. With the exception of Superman, he’s focused on bringing little known properties (Creature Commandos, Peacemaker) to life with little regard to box office success. One would hope that with the Supergirl debacle from earlier this year, he’s learned his lesson as far as letting his personal preferences overshadow good business sense.
So, it’s really no surprise that a second-tier Batman villain would get his own feature film. That Clayface manages to be a half-way decent body horror feature is perhaps the biggest surprise. Working from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, director James Watkins’ has fashioned a distinctive, gritty entry that runs counter to everything Gunn has produced thus far, the end result being a tragic, poignant portrayal of a sympathetic anti-hero you’re left wanting to see more of.
Having just been nominated for an Academy Award, actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is sitting on top of the world. Raised in the Narrows, the worst part of Gotham City, his rise to Tinsel Town stardom is a rags-to-riches story for the ages. Unfortunately, his stay on the top of the heap is short-lived. Having unintentionally taken a mob boss’ girl home for the evening, he awakens to a room full of thugs who, despite his begging and pleading, carve his pretty face to pieces.
Abandoned by his agent, robbed by his attorney and abandoned by his friends, Hagen finds himself one step away from skid row, desperate to reclaim his life. He thinks his salvation lies with Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) whose experiments with cell and skin regeneration may be the key to his resurrection. Volunteering as a guinea pig, Hagen willingly subjects himself to a series of injections that result in his face healing and returning to its original form. All is well until his new skin begins to droop, which compels the actor to ingest a large amount of Corr’s formula. Needless to say, the side effects are extreme.
Soon Hagen is able to change his skin to resemble anyone he meets which leads to a great deal of fun. Intent on taking down everyone who crossed him, the film becomes a clever game of cat-and-mouse, not only between the actor and his targets but with the audience as well. The script keeps us on our heels as we’re never quite sure who is who in any given scene, Hagen revealing himself in the most unexpected of places.
This sense of mystery is paired with the more horrific elements of the story to great effect. The grisly transformations prove to be more than a bit unsettling, the film earning its R rating. That this will please horror fans as well as those of the superhero genre is a masterstroke, one that DC and Marvel would do well to revisit in the future.
Thanks to Harries’ sympathetic turn, the portrait of Hagen that emerges is never that of a full-blown villain but rather a damaged man whose feelings are understandable though his actions are reprehensible. Clayface will never be heralded as a classic of any sort, yet it does prove to be better than expected, a movie that surprises and satisfies in a welcome, unassuming manner. In Theaters.
This article appears in October 22-28, 2026.
