REVIEW. THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK will steal your heart... and break it a little, too.
Everything you need to know about Harry Lehman (John Turturro) can be seen in the first five minutes of writer-director Noah Segan's new crime drama, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. As LCD Soundsystem's "New York, I Love You, but You're Bringing Me Down" plays over the modest opening credits, we watch Harry briefly share the same movie frame with a young corporate suit. Then we follow said suit to his upscale office suit where he schmoozes with co-workers. It is only much later in the afternoon (after the ubiquitous three-martini lunch), when he reaches for the wallet he thinks is still nestled in his inner jacket pocket that he realizes he's been robbed.
Quick cut to Harry, sitting alone on a park bench carefully rummaging through the billfold. No money, just credit cards. So he pitches it into a nearby trash can. Harry, you can conclude, is a pickpocket, the one alluded to in the movie's title. But he's not just any pickpocket. He's Old School, and we can see this from the keen way he observes passersby, the nimble way his fingers move, the smooth and unobtrusive way he's mastered his craft.
Harry's not a spring chicken anymore, and the hand-to-mouth existence that has defined his life is beginning to take its toil. So, too, will his lack of understanding about modern technology, which will eventually lead him down a path of no return.
But I've gotten ahead of myself. For now, we watch Harry tend to his wife Rosie (Karina Arroyave), whose undescribed illness has left her virtually catatonic and in need of constant care. Harry looks after Rosie with gentle, loving attention, the weight of her disability and their circumstance intricately etched on his face.
As he balances his daily work with duties as a caretaker - he always seems to be giving whatever money he receives from a local pawn shop owner and friend named Ben (Steve Buscemi) - to medical assistants and his neighbor across the hall, Harry moves in and about New York City's many neighborhoods to find his next score. Unfortunately, Harry is finding that the watches, iPods and cell phones that used to be the mainstay of his booty no longer garner the same kind of interest or profit.
One night, Harry masterfully pickpockets a young man named Dylan (Will Price), then later returns to break into his vintage car. He steals a dufflebag, which contains a USB cryto wallet. Not knowing what the device is, Harry takes it to Ben, who plugs it into a computer too old and outdated to decipher it. Ben suggests that Harry take the device to another broker named Frank (Kelvini Han Yee) who "knows electronics." and Harry does so only to be told the item is a common party favor and has no value. Not knowing any better, Harry sells the wallet and a few old smartphones to Frank.
Unfortunately, the cryto wallet had a tracking device, and Dylan, the heir to an east coast criminal organization, wants revenge. When he ransacks Ben's pawn shop (where the wallet was tracked), Ben tells Harry he had no choice but to tell Dylan where Harry lives. Harry rushes home to find Dylan menacing Rosie, and then giving Harry six hours to retreive the cryto wallet... or else.
As a frantic Harry races through New York City to retreive the wallet and save Rosie, he embarks on a kind of personal journey that makes The Only Living Pickpocket in New York a fascinating character study. You can't take your eyes off Turturro as Harry makes his way through NYC's winding subways, its diverse neighbhoods, all the time calculating his next move, shifting his plans as the situation warrants, constantly aware of his surroundings, and never once missing the opportunity to eye a dangling purse, an open jacket, a waiting pocket.
He is, after all, a thief who has had more than his share of run-in's with the law. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the people he seeks out for help is the detective (Giancarlo Esposit) who once arrested him. But Harry is more than the sum total of his many pilferings: he is a devoted husband to Rosie, a father long estranged from his only daughter, a petty, if skilled burglar, whose has become an anachronism in the modern age of technology.
Harry and his cronies long for the "old" New York, and director Segan uses the camera to great effect juxtaposing the New York City of Harry's youth with the city it is today. This is a movie more introspective than action thriller, a sometimes heartwrenching look at a man coming to terms with his life: he is a good man in a dicey profession with as many regrets as honorable deeds.
The whole of Segan's intimate portrait of a senescent pickpocket hangs on the credibility of his lead, one of film independent's shining stars, John Turturro. If you don't know Turturro (and why don't you?), he's easily one of the finest actors of his generation, with an impressive filmography that includes multiple collaborations with Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers. His varied roles have included everything from a racist pizza parlor owner in 1989's Do the Right Thing to the title character in 1991's Barton Fink. Turturro also uttered one of my favorite lines in movie history when his character, Jesus Quintana, famously tells The Dude (Jeff Bridges) in 1998's The Big Lewbowski, "Nobody fucks with the Jesus, man."
With Harry Lehman, his first leading role in over twenty years, Turturro gives a masterful performance that is all nuanced, understated eloquence. With a large tweed coat almost overwhelming his still slender frame, Harry moves about with the agility of an aging sorcerer, quietly plying his trade while juggling a tragic personal life that may or may not be the byproduct of his profession. One poignant scene, where Harry dances and sings in his tiny apartment to Odyssey's 1977 disco hit, "Native New Yorker" (playing on vinyl, no less), while an unresponsive Rosie lies in her hospital bed, provides an unexpected glimpse into Harry's heart and private desperation.
His unlikely reunion with estranged daughter Kelly (Tatiana Maslany) is likewise touching, with Segan's script providing just enough information to give the audience a sense of Harry's past sins, and what may be his final attempt at finding forgiveness. In contrast, the scene where, sitting on a subway train in the midst of his determination to retrieve the crpto wallet, Harry takes a young pickpocket aside to explain how he could improve his skills is both funny and sad, another reminder of the passing of time.
In each of these moments, you can't take your eyes of Turturro: his eyes darting furtively, then focusing sadly, his lips nervously smiling, then tenderly kissing Rosie, his fingers in constant motion as if preparing for the next snatch. Making Harry/Turturro's story even more genuine, Segan provides one more especially satisfying moment for cinephiles like me: reuniting Turturro with Esposito's Detective Warren, the first time the two have shared the screen since Do the Right Thing, almost forty years ago. Their formerly antagonistic relationship now becomes another element in Harry's story, as both men grapple with a changing world and how they navigate within it.
I had a hard time watching The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, not because it's a bad movie, but because the sadness that overshadows Harry's life is palpable, almost visceral, at times. There were moments when I wanted to leave the theater, but I couldn't bring myself to do so because I was completely invested in Turturro's portrayal of long-lived pickpocket whose fate after crossing the wrong mob family is all but sealed. Though we never actually see what happens to Harry, we know the inevitable outcome, even with a very satisfying twist near in the film's end, and a surprisingly heartfelt conversation between Harry and Dylan's grandmother Moira (Jamie Lee Curtis) about life, work, and family.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is the kind of little indie gem I wait for every year. Writer-director Noah Segan has packed less than ninety-minutes of film (shades of Woody Allen) with layers of life lessons, evocative visions of New York City, and a profound sense of how time and experience shape who we are. To have accomplished all that is inherent in Harry's story without excessive, unnecessary and graphic violence is quite the achievement. I must try to see it again.
Look for Turturro (and the movie) to be recognized at next year's Film Independent Spirit Awards. Whether this film has enough traction (re: Box Office returns) to garner Oscar recognition remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful for broader critical acknowledgment. Though it's not for everyone, I'd recommend Harry's story to anyone interested in seeing a movie that focuses more on character development than one that features lots of CGI/AI images, one that champions the human spirit, even when that soul is filled with personal flaws and frailties.
*******
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is currently playing in theaters. It is rated "R" for language, adult themes, and the suggestion of violence. Streaming dates/platforms have not yet been announced.
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