This review is based on a screening from the Sundance Film Festival.
In The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, writer and director Noah Segan yearns for a bygone Big Apple. The film, set in modern times, is a jazzy, sentimental ode to the New York City of yesteryear; it’s sappy and starry-eyed, but also tenderly humorous in bursts. At other times, the story becomes a sad glimpse into the lost art of pickpocketing – not that the production advocates for thievery, but Segan uses a slick aging swindler to reminisce about an American hub that’s been digitized by tech magnates and overrun with nepotism babies.
John Turturro is magnificent as Harry, an old-school pickpocket who’s…