Hank (Austin Butler, center) works with Lipa (Liev Schreiber, left), and Shmully (Vincent D'Onofrio, right) to find the hidden money in "Caught Stealing."
Hank's paramedic girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), tries to get him on the straight and narrow in "Caught Stealing."

Spoiler alert! We're discussing plot details about the ending of the new movie “Caught Stealing” (in theaters now).

After a blood-soaked odyssey across New York, Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) finally gets a little slice of paradise.

At the end of “Caught Stealing” (now in theaters), dejected bartender Hank makes off with millions of dollars in cash after getting caught in the crosshairs of hotheaded warring mobsters. He steals the identity of Russ (Matt Smith), his mohawked dead neighbor, and flees to a remote Mexican beach town, where he turns over a new leaf. Hank spent years running from his past and drowning his problems with alcohol, but the ex-athlete now smiles contentedly as he stares out at the ocean and sips a club soda.

Throughout the film, we frequently hear the voice of Hank’s gregarious mom over the phone, as mother and son gab about their shared love of the San Francisco Giants. In the last shot of the movie, we finally get a glimpse of her: Hank sends half of his cash to his mom in California and the film culminates with Laura Dern opening the box, dropping an F-bomb in disbelief before the credits roll.

Dern’s casting as Hank's mom was extremely meaningful to Butler, whose mother Lori died of cancer in 2014.

“She's forever entwined with any maternal role, in a film or in my life,” Butler says of his mom. “There are very personal things involved with who plays my mom (in this film). My own mother was told she looks like (Dern) all the time, so it has a very amazing sort of surreal rich meaning.”

Butler elaborated on his real-life friendship with Dern to Men’s Health, saying they are “kindred spirits.” He added that the Oscar-winning actress has taught him that you don’t need to destroy your life in order to play dark roles.

“She’s helping me more and more to see that you can come out the other side, and maybe bits of you have healed and synthesized and metabolized,” Butler told the magazine. “It can be therapeutic, in a way.”

Who dies in 'Caught Stealing' and how does the movie end?

Butler delivers a go-for-broke performance, even as the body count in "Caught Stealing" piles up. Puerto Rican drug lord Colorado (Bad Bunny) is killed in a dive-bar shootout by a dirty cop, Detective Roman (Regina King).

Roman is later gunned down by Hasidic gangsters Lipa (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully (Vincent D’Onofrio), who take Hank hostage. They too are killed instantly when Hank crashes their car and escapes with their millions.

But the most shocking loss is that of Hank’s girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), who is brutally murdered by mafiosos in her apartment less than a third of the way through the film. Her tragic death ultimately sets Hank on a path of both vengeance and personal redemption.

Director Darren Aronofsky says he didn't bat an eye about killing off Hank's love interest so early in the film and felt no pressure to have Hank and Yvonne ride off into the sunset together.

“Look, audiences want something that’s familiar but also incredibly surprising,” Aronofsky says. “We tried to do both on this one. The studio has been nothing but really supportive with the film. They believed in it when they first heard that Austin and I wanted to make it together."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Austin Butler reveals emotional link between his late mom and 'Caught Stealing' costar

Reporting by Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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