In The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, a petty thief caring for his catatonic wife steals from the wrong person—and the consequences could be deadly. This film makes that petty thief its protagonist and shows little concern for the folks he steals from. Add plenty of R-rated language and a plot geared toward oldsters, and you have a film that doesn’t offer a lot of attraction for family viewing.
As many as 4.7 million people ride New York’s subway system every day. Like fish, those people swim through train’s sliding doors—bags in hand, packs on back, eyes on phone—on their way to countless destinations: a museum, a park, their homes, their jobs.
But for some, that ride on the subway is their job. With deft fingers and a slight jostle, they make a pocket a little lighter—and a subway stranger’s day much, much worse.
Pickpockets don’t get performance reviews. But if Harry did, he’d receive high marks. He’s been at the business for decades now, and his fingers have only grown faster, his technique more refined. The subway is his prime hunting ground, but he’s not particular: He can’t afford to be. He’ll strike on the street, in a parking lot, in a corner diner if the opportunity presents itself.
Then, when the working day is done, Harry will pick up Rosie—his beloved, catatonic wife—carry her up the stairs, squeeze her dinner into her IV. And, if the bills are especially tight, he’ll pay the neighbor across the hall to listen for anything amiss in Rosie’s world. And then Harry will head out for a second shift.
And so it goes. Every day, every night, he lifts and pockets wallets, watches and smartphones he can’t use. He sells what he can, throws away the rest and moves on.
Until one night, Harry steals from the wrong guy.
He’s a kid, really—a Gen Z player with a baggy coat and vintage car. Harry strikes up a conversation, swipes the guy’s wallet and sticks a penny in the door handle (an old trick to keep the door from locking). Then, when the kid is guzzling down trendy TikTok drinks with his buddies in the bar, Harry goes back, opens the door and swipes the man’s gym bag.
Inside that bag he finds a watch worth 15K stuffed in a running shoe, a fancy, credit card-shaped USB drive (though Harry wouldn’t recognize it) and a gun.
He pockets the watch, keeps the drive (why, he’s not sure) and tosses the rest. He doesn’t want any trouble with a piece-packing kid.
But it’s too late. The trouble has begun. That kid—Dylan—belongs to the sort of family you never, ever steal from. And Dylan wants—no, he needs—that USB back.
And a comatose, helpless wife? Why, that might be just the leverage that Dylan can use.
When a movie’s primary protagonist is a lifelong pickpocket, that doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with here. But while we can take issue with Harry’s line of work, we can’t quibble with how he cares for Rosie.
Even though Rosie is completely uncommunicative and unable to do anything for herself, Harry is devoted to her. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he says as he picks her up from her adult daycare center, giving her a peck on the cheek. He takes care of Rosie’s medical needs, reads books to her and plays Rosie’s favorite music for her—and he seems genuinely happy to do it all.
“I never took care of a thing before I took care of her,” Harry says. He admits that perhaps part of him believes that, if he takes care of Rosie well, “I can fix everything I broke before.” It’s a hopeless belief, and he knows it. But it speaks powerfully to past regrets and his transformation into a moderately better person.
Theirs is not a happy family, exactly, but it is a loving one. And when Dylan interjects himself into that family, Harry swings into action to do whatever he can to protect Rosie’s life and future.
Harry intimates that he “broke” a lot of his life, and his relationships, before Rosie, and we see him do his best to make some sort of amends to someone he hurt. It’s not easy to patch a relationship this fractured, but let’s give the guy credit for trying.
Harry has a close relationship with his fence, Ben, as well. The two have been friends for decades, and while this drama tests that friendship, Ben steps up for Harry and Rosie’s sake at the end. A police detective—one who has clearly slapped handcuffs on Harry more than once—also seems to be a better friend than you’d think: He asks about Rosie, and when Harry needs help to protect her, the detective does what he can.
When Harry reads to Rosie, he quips that the book he’s reading has “more Jacobs than the Old Testament.”
Harry shows his gentle affection for Rosie often, kissing her cheek, stroking her hands, delicately lowering her into bed. Theirs is clearly not a sexual relationship, but Harry loves her with a fierce tenderness.
We hear a reference to an erection.
Dylan threatens both Harry and Rosie, and he suggests that Rosie might be better off if someone just killed her. Two men tussle. The movie suggests that someone dies off camera. A character is roughed up in a pawn shop. A brick smashes through a store window. A character is threatened with a gun. We hear about how someone was killed, and his head was found floating in the Hudson River.
Dylan’s family forms a crime syndicate, and that family will kill people who cross them as just a matter of course. And someone suggests they’re not averse to killing one of their own.
About 32 f-words and 15 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused at least twice, and Jesus’ name is abused three times. We hear a few uses of the word “schmuck.”
Dylan and his pals hang out in a bar, and he’s unimpressed with the drink he ordered—one trending on social media. When the bartender tells Dylan that he’s not surprised the drink tastes terrible, Dylan says, “So you think that 9 million posts are wrong?”
“You think that 9 million people tasted it?” the bartender says.
Harry smokes cigars. Dylan vapes. We hear a reference to beer. Rosie has been prescribed a bevy of medications, and we see those drugs near her bed. A store owner tells Harry that he sells various Eastern remedies, including something that he calls weed. “Not grass,” he declares. “Herbal.” And that substance will allegedly cure almost anything that can ail someone.
This kinda goes without saying, but Harry is a thief, and an unreformed one. When someone suggests he could get a real job, Harry tells her that he still prefers his “five-finger discount.” When he spots a young pickpocket on the subway, Harry gives him tips on how to do his “job” better. He shows no remorse, and most of the folks who Harry associates with are equally calloused. They are the wolves of this thieving fraternity, and everyone else serves as their sheep.
We hear that Harry had a gambling problem, too—and that he gambled away his daughter’s college fund.
But in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Harry’s just about the most moral character we see. Some of the other folks who cross the screen are worse: One lies about having a crucial bit of contraband, thus threatening Harry’s wife. Others refuse to help at all. And Dylan—well, even the crime family of which he’s so proud has very little use for the posturing, preening pretender.
Characters urinate in bathrooms.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is a movie for oldsters.
Sure, the film may not say so directly. Superficially, it may be predicated on a longtime pickpocket (played by an excellent John Turturro) who cares for his catatonic wife and gets into trouble he never saw coming. But on a deeper level, it’s about change: How the world has recklessly tumbled into a scary, screen-based world, and what we’ve lost because of it.
Harry doesn’t have a smartphone: doesn’t even really know how to use one. He has no idea what a USB card is, and his business partner owns a computer that’s been chugging away since the 1990s. The stuff Harry steals? It’s real. Tangible. He carries cash and uses it everywhere. Dylan and his crew? What they steal is all on a screen. What they own is practically theoretical—a lot of numbers on a USB card that fits in a wallet.
Even the watches our characters wear tell us something. Harry wears the same high-quality watch that Ben gave him 45 years ago. Dylan carries an expensive timepiece, too, but he only wears it when he wants to impress someone. The watch Dylan actually wears, he proudly says, will be obsolete in months and counts his steps.
“You guys are all about your f—ing word, huh?” Dylan mockingly asks Harry and Ben.
“That’s what makes it mean something,” Ben says.
Those deeper messages are great and all. But we can’t forget the issues that sully the surface.
The film gives us a guy who should be spending some significant time behind bars and asks us to root for him. It practically glamorizes pickpocketing, stressing the skill that it takes and framing it as a practically honorable profession. And then, of course, you’ve got the language issues—more than enough to push the movie well into R-rated territory.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is, aesthetically, a fine film with great performances and a deeper point to make. But like Harry’s workplace of choice, this cinematic subway is filled with subtle peril.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
