“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” Review

“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” is a wistful crime drama, filled with characters yearning for the bad old days of New York, when the city was a little grimier, a little more dangerous, but its personality was immense.

John Turturro carries the film as Harry Lehman, a career pickpocket who has watched his city and world change dramatically over the years. Once upon a time, people were decent enough to carry cash in their wallet, so when you picked their pocket you had an obvious untraceable payday. But nowadays, in the age of digital payments and crypto currency, Harry is more likely to pull an empty wallet than anything he can sell.

One day, he steals from the wrong person, finding a metallic USB drive, a crypto wallet that he doesn’t understand at all. The owner of this wallet just so happens to be the young scion to a powerful crime family, and he is committed to recovering his stolen goods and hurting anybody unfortunate enough to be involved. This threat sends Harry on a mission, traipsing all over the city by subway, bus and foot; from Queens to the Bronx, Brooklyn to Chinatown all in an effort to recover the lost wallet.

Never before have I seen a film so desperate to be a great New York movie. The soundtrack opens with LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down” and ends with “I Happen to Like New York” by Bobby Short, with countless other New York name drops littered throughout. You like New York, we get it! In a film filled with so much restraint in its direction and performances, the incredibly on-the-nose soundtrack is just too much.

Where the film shines is as a character study of an everyday thief who has perfected his craft yet struggles in the face of modern challenges. Turturro’s thief is not some coldblooded criminal genius. He is an everyman with no grand ambitions, no master plan, just shrewd eyes always roving for the next mark. Through his performance, Turturro keeps the character grounded and authentic even when he could easily play the emotions big. By downplaying Harry’s feelings, Turturro renders the drama emotionally devastating.

While Turturro’s performance carries the film, he is matched constantly with wonderful costars, from Giancarlo Esposito as a detective nearing retirement to Steve Buscemi as Harry’s longtime fence and closest friend.

If there’s a weak spot in the film, it’s Will Price as the sniveling antagonist, though this has less to do with the performance than with the character. Price plays the villain as pretentious and entitled, somebody who wants others to fear him because of who his mommy and daddy are. The character himself is more nuanced than your boilerplate crime drama villain, yet he is saddled with much of the worst dialogue in the film, often verbalizing the themes about how time has passed Turturro by, essentially repeating “the future is now, old man” in more and more obnoxious ways.

Watches tell a story in this film, with care taken to linger on Harry’s classic Rolex, a hapless mark’s counterfeit Patek Philippe, and the young gangster’s cutting-edge smartwatch. These watches reflect how values change, how what we care about has evolved from high-quality craftsmanship to the illusion of luxury or the value-add of increased functionality. The old-fashioned Rolex, much like Turturro’s highly skilled thief, is a relic of a bygone era, a victim of changing times that cannot comprehend its own obsolescence.

But some people still value the subtle mastery exhibited by true artists. For those people, “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” is a unique crime drama that pairs the requisite suspense of a heist gone wrong with nostalgia for simpler times.

“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” Written and Directed by Noah Segan. Starring John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany and Steve Buscemi. Running Time: 88 Minutes. Genres: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Rated R for language.