John Turturro's Sundance pickpocket drama earns 'knockout' reviews

John Turturro’s new film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27 and has drawn strong early reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it a “quiet knockout,” MovieWeb reported. Written and directed by Noah Segan, Pickpocket follows career criminal Harry (Turturro), who makes a grave mistake after stealing from a local tough named Dylan (Will Price).

The film — which runs 88 minutes — also stars Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany and Steve Buscemi. Critics singled out Turturro’s performance. The Hollywood Reporter called him “unshowy but magnificent in his best film role in years,” while The Guardian hailed the movie as “one of the best” New York stories in a while and praised Maslany’s scene work.

Variety described Turturro’s turn as a “mesmerizingly tender performance” and called the film a local love letter to the city. Deadline suggested early awards-season potential, urging readers to “put Turturro on the ticket.” Behind the scenes, Turturro read David W. Maurer’s 1964 book Whiz Mob to prepare and took tutorials from performance pickpocket Apollo Robbins.

Director Noah Segan told Deadline that Turturro even joked about nearly trying pickpocketing for real off set — “I could. I didn’t! But I could...” — when recounting a moment on the 2 train.

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