Caught Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Caught Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 22, 2023

It isn't often that a movie with a contemporary setting has a 24-year-old gap between the initial publication of its literary source and the theatrical release date, but that was the case with director Robert M. Young's Caught (1996). Edward Pomerantz adopted his own 1972 novel, Into It, into a screenplay. When Pomerantz's slender novel was published in hardback by Dial Press in the early Seventies, it gained as much attention from other novelists as it did in the press. For example, Joseph Heller (Catch-22) described it as a "vivid, surprising novel—spare, hard, different. Easy to read and very, very hard to stop thinking about." Avery Corman (Oh, God!) praised it as "hot, energetic writing. You find yourself swept along, reading it in the same breathless way it is written." Michael Lynch, then a lecturer in literary fiction at Johns Hopkins University, reviewed a handful of fiction works for The Baltimore Sun, including Pomerantz’s debut novel. He observed: “Into It is, by far, the most accomplished novel of the lot. (Although this is a first novel, Mr. Pomerantz is already known for his novellas.) The spare and masterfully controlled narrative....the [narrative] pattern keeps breaking from the obvious; it is refined into a poetry of originality....As the scene unfolds, you realize you are in the hands of an extraordinary artist. Mr. Pomerantz handles scene after scene with the same delicate balance, and the irony is never self-conscious, nor is it coy. It is like a mirror held to a mirror, reality and imagination, a balance between history and story, between life and the imagination. It is a delight to watch Mr. Porngrantz’s mastery.” By contrast, Christopher Herron Lee found the story too downbeat, as he pointed out in his review in The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY): "[It's] written in such a lean, spare, close­[-]cropped style as to almost be self-parody. His directness and negative viewpoint makes for a very harsh book that moves quickly from horror to horror."

Pomerantz’s script is set more than two decades later in Jersey City where young drifter Nick (Arie Verveen) is fleeing the cops on foot. He wanders into a seafood store owned by Joe (Edward James Olmos) and his wife Betty (Maria Conchita Alonso). The co-owners, especially Betty, feel sorry for Nick and invite him over to their place for dinner and to stay the night. While Joe would prefer that Nick find a job on his own, Betty suggests to her husband that he become their store assistant filleting fish. Joe later warms to Nick and adopts him as a surrogate son. It's apparent early on that Betty is physically attracted to Nick and romantic sparks soon fly. She probably hasn't been intimate with her husband for a long while and purges her sexual frustration when she hits it off with Nick. Joe is either oblivious or not very conscious when his wife is not in the bedroom with him. One practically incredulous scene occurs in the middle of night when a sleepy Joe goes into the bathroom for a pee unbeknown that Betty is showering with Nick! Things take a compelling turn with the unexpected arrival of Joe and Betty's son, Danny (Steven Schub), his wife Amy (Bitty Schram), and their newborn. The young family had flown into Jersey City from California where Danny's career as a standup comedian had been floundering. Danny is displeased to see that Nick is occupying his old bedroom. He's also much more suspicious that his mother may be having an affair with the twenty-something adoptee. Danny is coarse and rude—completely different than Nick—so it isn't a secret why Joe and Betty have embraced Nick more. Also, Danny wasn't interested in filleting fish so Joe is delighted with Nick's willingness to do so. "Fish are his life," as Betty tells Nick. Will Danny ultimately discover his mom's affair with Nick and cause a permanent family rift?

Time for dessert.

Caught received mixed reviews from critics in the US where it played sporadically in theaters during the autumn of 1996. Dave Kehr of the Daily (NY) News gave it two out of four stars, complaining that it reeks the clichés of Greek tragedy: "[S]omething does feel dated in its blend of social realism and classical allusions. The movie breathes with the De­pression-era impulse to bring tragic grandeur to the fate of the 'little man' — though 'lit­tle man' is no longer the un­problematic term it was to writers of the ’30s. What once seemed a noble return to the streets now looks condescend­ing, with its suggestion that the average Joe is of interest only if his story can be tied to an exalted element in the European literary tradition." Jerry Tallmer of The Record (Woodland Park, NJ) felt that it was a quality film up until the climax: "Caught has a good, honest cinematic trajectory right up to the last two minutes, when it goes haywire with melo­dramatic cliche....in the last few feet of the last reel, that Caught turns predictable, violent, and maw­kish."

Elsewhere, Caught received stronger acclaim for its performances, Pomerantz’s writing, and Young's direction. John Hartl of the Seattle Times thought that Steven Schub gave the picture the energy and momentum it needed: "Although it starts off like a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, this modern film noir ingeniously heightens the ten­sions of a familiar romantic trian­gle by adding a notably unstable fourth character [i.e., Danny]." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Desmond Ryan ranked Caught with Young's finest films: "Young is a veteran independent filmmaker, and when he is on his game, as he is in Caught, he has a way of getting to the core of his charac­ters and catching subtle details that speak volumes about them. Caught is on the level of his best work in The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez and the criminally underrated Dominick and Eugene." The Fresno (CA) Bee's Donald Munro found the movie's offbeat and disturbing tone to be positive qualities: "It’s been a while since a film creeped me out as much as Caught. Nothing in its basic structure — a classic older-woman-younger-man-jealous-husband triangle — prepared me for its off-kilter intensity....What makes it work are the sharply drawn characters as they flounder in the close, confined story." The Santa Fe New Mexican's Jon Bowman drew a very famous corollary: "Not since Psycho have shower scenes played so prominent a role as in Caught....The meaty performances make the film." The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune's Sean P. Means and The Sacramento Bee's Joe Baltake each awarded the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. Means wrote: "Caught is one of the sharpest surprises of the year. With com­pelling characters and electric drama, it's a movie that draws its audience in like a fisherman pull­ing in his nets." Baltake was even more laudatory: "All of this is eminently watch­able – intensely so, thanks to Edward Pomerantz’s fine script (based on his novel, Into It) and a small ensemble of flaw­less performances. Caught may be the polar opposite of just about every American mov­ie made today. It has no cine­matic 'style' to speak of, but it has the kind of writing that in­spires actors and holds audi­ences....[Robert Young’s] responsible for the dry authenticity of the amazing perfor­mances here – and of the movie itself."

Caught Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony Pictures Classics has brought Caught to Blu-ray for the first time on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1. This is another very strong transfer for one of Sony's indie titles. The river water looks vivid in the opening shot (see Screenshot #7). The scene where there's a cookout at the park boasts a warm palette with lots of different colors (see frame grab #s 2, 10, and especially, 13 & 21). Close-ups reveal very good detail (see Olmos's lined forehead in #9). You can see the grain on Maria Conchita Alonso's face and leg in #12. Sony has encoded the 109-minute feature with a mean video bitrate of 25681 kbps.

There's no menu so chapters are only accessible via remote control.

Caught Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (2112 kbps, 24-bit) as the sole audio track. The lossless mix produces a deep sound at the start and demonstrates terrific range. The movie is all in English. I found dialogue clear enough to comprehend, which is important since Sony doesn't provide any subtitles. Jazz musician Chris Botti wrote a wonderful score for Caught. He performs on trumpet, synthesizer, and piano. Botti is outstanding on trumpet. This often sounds like a Mark Isham score. I've listened to the soundtrack album several times and the orchestral ensemble is larger than even the keenest ear can discern. In addition to Botti's performances, the ensemble also consists of another keyboardist, pianist, two guitarists, three drummers/percussionists, two bassists, nine violinists, three violists, three cellists, and a harpist. The trumpet is a standout on several of the album's cues. The strings shine on the track "Family." Botti's score sounds good on the uncompressed stereo mix. It wouldn't have hurt to open up the music and f/x by adding a 5.1 remix in lossless.

Caught Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Most unfortunately, there are zero extras on this disc.

Caught Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I haven't read Into It but very much want to after perusing literary reviews of the novel. Apparently, the fates of the characters diverge on page compared to on screen. The aforesaid Christopher Herron Lee mentioned in his review that Danny "is involved in some vague sinister C.I.A. machinations in Texas." The film drops that subplot. Aside from a few implausibilities, Caught is a very good erotic/familial drama. If you're looking to check out Robert M. Young's earlier work, my colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov has favorably reviewed ¡Alambrista! (1977) and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982), both on the Criterion label. I'm hoping that a label eventually releases Young's Triumph of the Spirit (1989) co-starring Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos. Sony has delivered an excellent HD transfer for Caught. Alas, there are no supplements, which would have strengthened my endorsement of this disc. RECOMMENDED.