Noah Segan’s light-footed crime noir The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is a film obsessed with the gap between the old and new. There are memories shared about how things used to be, and some older characters refusing to keep up with digital progression, while there are eye-rolls from the younger generation, poking fun at those losing touch with how the world now operates. I’d argue that the theme is often a little overplayed, a classic case of writer-director Segan – a frequent Rian Johnson collaborator – telling rather than showing. But his film makes a convincing case for the old, a brisk throwback to a 70s-era character-led thriller, made with borrowed flair from yesteryear.
The title is itself partly borrowed from a Simon and Garfunkel song and speaks to a protagonist of a dying breed, a pickpocket who prides himself on the old ways; though he might swipe smartphones, he doesn’t own one. He’s played by John Turturro, an actor who hasn’t enjoyed many a lead role of late – his last was in the ill-received Big Lebowski “sequel” The Jesus Rolls and that’s only because he wrote and directed it himself. But this is a welcome step up, or step back up, for someone deserving of something more substantial to tear into. Fittingly, he’s someone who would have arguably had a more prominent career as a leading man in a different time.
His character, Harry, might be straight from a dog-eared crime novel you could fit in your coat pocket – works alone, sticks to his routine, makes for a better thief than he ever did a father – but part of the film’s pleasure lies in the familiar. Nostalgia can become a crutch for so many film-makers but there’s also real sincerity here.
Harry sticks to mostly simple steals, operating on the subway, living in the Bronx but finding most of his work in Manhattan. He sells to an old friend, pawnbroker Ben (fellow Coens collaborator Steve Buscemi), and spends his downtime caring for his wife, who has a degenerative disease that renders her mute and motionless. As is often the case with a character of this ilk, Harry makes the mistake of stealing from the wrong person, the bratty offspring of a connected crime family (rising star Will Price, believably obnoxious), and has to find his way out of a dangerous spot before the day is through.
It’s pretty much the film one expects but it’s engaging enough and tight at 88 minutes. So often, what was once taken for granted – in what Harry would affectionately remember as the good old days – can now feel like a miracle and, as one would hope given the title, this is very much an on-location, recognise-and-point New York film, and one of the best I’ve seen in a while. Harry’s life might be in danger but there’s a charming hangout movie breeziness to his travels around the city, having to find his way without Google Maps. Even though a reunion with his estranged daughter might seem a little too schematic, it allows for a wonderfully effective performance from Tatiana Maslany, who brings decades of anger and sadness into a single scene. She also tells Harry he looks like shit, maybe the film’s most far-fetched moment, given how great Turturro is looking at 68 – a cool but not overstyled man about town – and he’s such a likable, if morally dubious, companion that I would have gladly spent longer with him, stealing from New Yorkers and complaining about prices to anyone who’ll listen.
Segan’s script is not quite as whip-smart as he sometimes seems to think it is and there’s some doubling back “oh you think this happened” explanations that are less fiendishly clever and more goofily contrived. There’s also a surprise last-act cameo from an Oscar-winner that’s a bit too jolting to work given their particularly outsized persona, although Segan does manage a satisfyingly bittersweet ending. It’s an earnest tribute to a lot of things – a city, a time, a genre, a mentality, an actor in Turturro – and while we’ve definitely been here before, it’s nice to come back.
