Credit: Far Out / JON PACK / TIFF / Sony Pictures Classics
Sun 27 September 2026 23:30, UK
Noah Segan – ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is an old-fashioned ’24-hour’ thriller with John Turturro at his best.
Turturro is among the most versatile and beloved character actors of the last 40 years, so it’s only fitting that he would eventually get a role like Harry Lehman in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. That’s not just because it’s one of the few instances in which he’s been given the opportunity to play the lead, but because the film can double as a self-reflective career retrospective; it’s not hard to see the parallels between an ageing, somewhat antiquated thief and an actor who has spent years as one of the definitive ‘that guys’.
Although decades of watching him onscreen certainly add to the sentimentality of the film, it is a delight on its own merits. This is an enveloping, personal story about falling into unexpected circumstances and reaching a reckoning, and writer/director Noah Segal maps out a clever script that knows when to be two steps ahead of the audience, yet also teaches them to anticipate twists.
Turturro’s Harry is a pickpocket who steals from subway riders and pedestrians in the streets of Brooklyn, even if he’s made to feel increasingly aware that it’s an old-fashioned trade in a world that has gone digital. Although he nearly gets caught in a standoff with the outspoken young man Dylan Diamond, played by Will Price, he’s still able to snag a few loose items that he passes to his fence, Ben, played by Steve Buscemi, who runs a pawn shop with his granddaughter Victoria Morales’ Eve.
Neither of the two ageing men knows what to do with an SD card found among Dylan’s items (even if Ben’s computer knowledge is more advanced than Harry’s), but it turns out that it’s of significant value. Dylan is part of a crime family that could lose a pretty penny if the card were to fall into the wrong hands, and he’s willing to threaten Harry’s wife, Rosie, played by Karina Arroyave, to get it back.
Credit: Sony Pictures Classics
The stakes are simple and personal, as it creates a fluid disruption within his workmanlike schedule. Seeing a seemingly removed character like Harry go through the routines of his cons, developed over decades of experience, makes for a mesmerising experience that shows everything that it doesn’t need to tell. The subtle hints along the way about his regrets, family, and long-term aspirations gradually intensify the interpersonal drama, mostly because he isn’t out with anything to prove. He hasn’t changed over the years, but they’ve caught up with him with consequences to spare; even if it wasn’t a mob-connected nepo baby that blew up his reality, a reckoning of some point was coming.
There’s a charm to seeing a film that feels like a love letter to actors, given that every minor role has more nuance and individuality than it would have had the right performer not been cast. Giancarlo Esposito makes for a particular compelling cop who is willing to offer Harry a few favours, and it makes for a fun inverse of the very different relationship he had with Turturro in Do the Right Thing. Buscemi is another reliable character actor and frequent collaborator of the former, who strikes a slightly more wholesome, grounded perspective that builds out a fun underworld of criminals who have been able to live in plain sight.
It’s a critical performance because of the disparity between the two characters; Ben is a family man who happens to be involved in shady dealings, but Harry is a criminal who is forced to remember he has a family. Not all of the performances work, as the brief appearances by Jamie Lee Curtis and Aida Turturro in slightly hammy roles are an unnecessary addition of star power that detracts from the more grounded sensibilities.
Price’s performance is also not completely effective; although the fact that Dylan is a con artist of his own who is trying to act like he’s as tough as his family is known for, there are too many instances in which the character shows incompetence for the sake of perpetuating the narrative.
Tatinana Maslany has a very moving scene as Harry’s daughter that doesn’t completely take advantage of her extraordinary talents, but it’s also hard to nitpick about the limited screentime for some actors when the film comes in at a clean 88 minutes. The transformation that The Only Living Pickpocket in New York makes from a classical high-concept thriller to a melancholy, wise drama about legacy is an impressive shift that suggests that Sagan has an exciting career ahead of him.
Turturro has been in so many all-time classics that it’s hard to say that this is among the best, but it’s hard to imagine one that benefited from his presence more.
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