The Only Living Pickpocket in New York Review: Eulogy for a Dying Breed

There’s a very simple shot in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, but it’s one that tells the whole story of the film. On the banks of the East River, the camera pans from the Brooklyn Bridge, across Lower Manhattan, to the gleaming spires and hypermodern architecture of the Financial District.

It’s a metaphor for the death of an old New York and the rise of something new and more cutthroat. The old NYC of granite is given corporeal form in the shape of Harry Lehman, who may be the last of a dying breed. He’s a pickpocket, old-school as they come and failing to contend with modernity. He’s of an era when people kept cash in their billfold, and watches were worth something. So what’s left for him when even once-valuable cellphones aren’t worth a dime since they can get bricked remotely?

When it comes to crime, Harry is the last buggy-whip maker in an era of electric cars, and in his tender, bittersweet depiction of this master cutpurse, John Turturro captures a man past redemption or change. That’s why writer/director Noah Segan never really seems to judge him, since his punishment is being himself, even if he’s trying to be the best version of that he can be. Still, who needs a high-quality buggy whip in this day and age?

It’s telling that Harry’s most intimate relationship is with Detective Warren (an equally grizzled and tired Giancarlo Esposito), the cop with whom he has a shared history so old that it’s become a common bond. Even if Warren pulled him in, what good would it do? Only harm, as no one would be left to look after Harry’s catatonic wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave). Even though the three never share a scene, Turtorro, Esposito, and the increasingly perfectly haggard Steve Buscemi as Harry’s longtime fence, Ben, all personify a particular kind of cinematic NYC. It’s not the super grimy world of Taxi Driver and Mean Streets, but that mix of crime and class of films like King of New York and The Pope of Greenwich Village. But they’re not leading men and never were. They’re the lesser guys in the shadows who survived by being low-key, for whom being seen is the only fatal mistake.

Which, of course, is what happens to Harry, who finally picks the wrong pocket and gets on the wrong side of nth-generation gangster Dylan (Will Price), who opines at length to his tracksuit-wearing buddies about how the real money is in crypto and cybercrime. What chance does Harry, a guy who thinks wiping his prints is enough, have against someone who knows how to use security cameras to track him?

There are no violent antics and no set pieces to The Only Living Pickpocket. Indeed, there’s little indication that it comes from the same filmmaker who made his feature directorial debut with the quirky vampire road trip horror-comedy Blood Relatives. There’s a simplicity to this film, a straightforwardness that allows Segan to add the little wrinkles around Harry deploying his old-school skills to maybe get him out of this jam. At the same time, neither Segan nor Turturro lose sight of the limitations of Harry as a historical artifact.

There are some narrative tricks at play, leaving the audience a little in awe of Harry’s sleight of hand. Yet, even without them, Turturro’s understated performance is the captivating heart of this film. Whether it’s his dialogues with Buscemi and Esposito, the way he cowers at the well-deserved tongue-lashing he receives from his estranged daughter (the always excellent Tatiana Maslany), or a pivotal exchange with Jamie Lee Curtis in one of those rare performances where she leaves her star persona at the door, he delivers the perfect eulogy to an era.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

2026, R, 86 min. Directed by Noah Segan. Starring John Turturro, Will Price, Giancarlo Esposito, Steve Buscemi, Victoria Moroles, Karina Arroyave, Tatiana Maslany, Jamie Lee Curtis.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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