'T H I E F'
A retrospective movie review by Walter Frith
Director Michael Mann's moody crime film 'Thief' from 1981 is a film of such slick, original and invigorating visuals that it's hard to imagine the film made any other way once you've seen the entire thing. Also scripted by Mann from the book 'The Home Invaders' by Frank Hohimer, it has a flow of such natural dialogue to match the best crime scenes ever filmed and the characters are totally unsympathetic for an extra focus on reality. It bothers me sometimes that motion pictures take a protagonist who chooses the wrong path in life and they are made out to be sympathetic.
Mann, who has made other films such as 'The Last of the Mohicans' (1992) and a great companion piece to 'Thief' entitled 'Heat' from 1995 with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and the force behind the 80's television series 'Miami Vice', chooses his camera angles carefully and uses tight editing and feisty lighting in 'Thief' that enhances the film's final outcome.
James Caan is a lifelong thief who has spent over a decade in prison and can't reform his ways after release. His mentor (Willie Nelson in a two scene cameo) has taught him everything he knows about crime and Caan tries to obtain his release from prison when learning that Nelson is suffering from an eventually fatal respiratory condition. Caan plans the greatest heist of his career while in the employment of a slimy crime boss (Robert Prosky). Caan works with a loyal partner (James Belushi) and marries a woman (Tuesday Weld) who doesn't seem too upset that her new husband is a criminal who may leave her anytime by being arrested, pursued or killed in the life he has chosen. The personality profile between Caan and Weld is nicely set up in a cafe sequence where they explain their lives to one another and decide to stay together.
The film's basic message is survival and uses the old morality statement that there is no loyalty among thieves and the picture's original music score by Tangerine Dream and the arresting cinematography by Donald Thorin impact the story just as well as any academic thought the director ever had.
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