Ron’s Review

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I had not heard of The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, but apparently it was at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Well, the whole point of the Cineplex Monday Surprise Premieres is to watch unusual films, and we have seen a few good ones this year.

Unfortunately, this film wasn’t one of them. When I saw John Turturro, I was hopeful. He’s been in the movies all my life, and he’s always excellent. Then Steve Buscemi shows up, and I’m sure it’ll get better, because Buscemi gives it 110%, every time. And then there’s Giancarlo Esposito, who’s always incredible, no matter what role he plays. I thought with a stellar cast like this, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is going to be engaging, exciting, heart-wrenching.

Yeah, no, it wasn’t any of that. The acting is great, which is on par with the quality of the cast. But the story does nothing. We’re following an aging pickpocket who is behind on the times. He steals from the wrong guy and suddenly, his loved ones are in danger.

Or, are they? Because when a weird young man who you’ve stolen a lot of money from breaks into your home and takes it over while your invalid wife is trapped in bed, you’d think the stakes would be incredibly high. That there would be a great sense of urgency for the protagonist to complete his task and get back to his wife, to protect her.

That does not happen. We’re given a deadline and the story proceeds to meander. The protagonist seems to have the least amount of concern about what could be happening to his wife, who literally can’t defend herself, while he traverses all over New York. The pacing was so poorly executed.

And as much as this film wants to be about New York, the city is barely showcased, aside from name-dropping a few stations and areas. We don’t get to see how people live, where they live, what they do. This film may not have had a big budget, but at least show us something!

The ending could have changed my feelings about this film but it was so trite, so predictable, so exposition-heavy, that it made the film feel even worse.

A great cast and cameos can’t save a lacklustre story and poor pacing. The film does nothing with a tired formula, and fails to spotlight the city it’s supposed to celebrate. I can’t get the nearly two hours back that I spent watching this film.

Mon’s Review

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I heard about this film in the lead-up to the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, where it made its Canadian premiere. I wasn’t uninterested in watching The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, but it wasn’t highest on my list.

After catching it at the Monday Surprise Premiere, I’m kind of glad I skipped it at TIFF.

The first Act starts off with a red herring, before planting us firmly into the constrained life of Harry (John Turturro), an old-fashioned pickpocket who is very behind the times when it comes to all things technology-related. But he makes do because he must, and because he’s the sole carer for his wife.

Unfortunately, Harry’s life of crime comes back to bite him. Not because of the cops, but because there are worse criminals out there, who are sneakier, scarier, and technologically in the know. Suddenly Harry’s life, friends, and wife, are in danger. And the clock’s running out.

Look, I wanted to like this film. Especially after the first act, which was tight, and compelling. Turturro and Giancarlo Esposito (in a criminally underused role) were fantastic. Esposito has such incredible screen presence, it doesn’t matter what kind of role he’s playing, you can’t not watch him. I’m not a huge fan of Turturro, but he’s good at embodying the roles he’s playing.

But following the first act, the film just fizzled out. Noah Sagan has a ton of acting credits to his name, and frequently works with Rian Johnson, who was a producer on The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. That lack of experience was evident in this venture. There was no focus, and definitely no stakes. I do not understand how, when one's loved ones’ lives are in the hands of a maniac, you can go off on a bunch of sidequests. I am stupefied by this story choice. We didn’t feel the stakes at all, because there was no urgency in the character’s actions.

It doesn’t help that, barring the old guard, the only other actor of note was Will Price as Dylan. He was terrible. Absolutely dreadful. Such an awful performance, especially against stalwarts. He sucked the life and any semblance of credibility out of the film.

But the sheer disappointment that is The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is down to a poorly structured story, which was far too thin to fill out its runtime, and much too unfocused to say anything. The fact that the third act was basically Cameos, The Movie, just goes to show how little this film had to go on.