Thief [Blu-ray]

A neo-noir crime caper with consequences.Michael Mann never directed a bad film. This is evident from his dazzling film debut as a director with Thief (1981). Mann takes old noir style and adds it to his gritty and dreamy criminal landscape of Chicago in the 1980's for a wholly original crime drama. The consequences are real and the suspense is incredible.Mann's direction is riveting with long safe cracking sequences, a thrilling shootout, tense negotiations, and open conversations. The opening robbery is meticulous and tense with astonishing detail. The big heist is the centerpiece to Thief with haunting lighting and shadowy execution. It is some of cinema's finest visuals. The finale shootout is both suspenseful in noir fashion as well as exciting and satisfying as a conclusion to Thief.James Caan's leading performance as Frank is engaging. Caan is like a force of nature with furious passion and indignant rage as a professional safecracker. His careful heist planning is interesting, while his human drama is powerful. Caan was never as great as a lead actor than in Thief. It's easily up there with his work in The Godfather and Misery.Tangerine Dream's electronic score is so dreamy and compelling in Thief. Their music drives the movie into enthralling territory. Without Tangerine Dream's score for Thief, I doubt there would be a film like Drive.Tuesday Weld is great as Frank's lovely girlfriend Jessie who does not hold anything back. Willie Nelson makes a wonderful dramatic turn as Okla. His tired and weary lines to James Caan while Okla is in prison are endearing and saddening. James Belushi is great as Barry with a shocking moment with him. Lastly, Robert Prosky makes an outstanding turn as a vile antagonist named Leo. He is certainly one of film's greatest villains for his slick manipulation and under-handed plays.In all, Thief is cool and brilliant. Well directed with a commanding performance from James Caan. It is still worth seeing as its influence knows no bounds.

As soon as we see the rain-slicked streets of Chicago and hear the throbbing synths of Tangerine Dream, we’re in Mann-Land. Does anyone do neon reflections better? Chicago makes the Los Angeles of “Blade Runner” look like Podunk on a Thursday night. I’d be happy just to watch big old American cars trundle through the rain and not even bother with a plot.But, a plot there is, and it’s pretty basic. Nothing that hasn’t been done before: a high-end heist-meister has to do one more big job and then he’s out. But no matter how a criminal tries to get out of the game, they always pull him back in, don’t they? And so they do James Caan. As a role, this isn’t comparable to Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather”. As stylish a visual stylist Michael Mann is, “Thief” isn’t epic like that. It’s pretty good, though. He sells the ex-convict with a talent and a hair-trigger temper.Caan looks great; with the black leather jacket, the tight jeans, the Eldorado, he’s living the dream. In fact he’s got his dream down on paper in a portable framing device he can unfold and stare at. Didn’t some new age guru have that idea too, you make up a dream board and stare at it until it becomes actualized? Seems to have worked for James Caan, anyway. He’s got a car lot, a bar, nice if overly flashy clothes, seriously over-flashy cars.If I were a criminal, especially the sort who does high-profile crimes, I wonder if I wouldn’t want to be less conspicuous. Dress schlumpy, drive a dusty Taurus, avoid the limelight? Just saying. But Caan has it all except for a Tuesday Weld, who then conveniently turns up.Weld is pretty stiff here. Maybe she’s expressing her traumatized past, Columbia (the country, not the college), drug dealer BF, hard times, fertility troubles. But her lack of affect, and the speed with which she goes from regarding Caan as a pushy creep to his being her one true love, that’s a bit hard to take seriously. Also, if I were a criminal, I don’t know that I’d discuss my profession loudly in a diner. Or wave a pistol around in a diner or assault patrons on the sidewalk of a diner. But that’s just me.Anyway, Tuesday Weld displays the talent that would take her a very little ways in the movie business. I remember her as being pretty good in “Mr. Goodbar” and she was excellent with the uber-neurotic Anthony Perkins in “Pretty Poison”. Here, she’s OK but kind of oddly stiff. Definitely not overacting.Jim Belushi (apparently this is his first acting job) plays Caan’s tech-savvy partner in crime. It’s a smallish part and he’s completely up to it. No complaints. James Belushi does not get much credit as a journeyman actor. Nor does he deserve much credit. Here, as he would be in future films, Belushi is unobjectionable. All one can ask.If you look fast, you can see Dennis Farina in his first role as a wiseguy, a genre he’d inhabit profitably for years to come. Some guys are just fortunate enough to look like mobsters. Willie Nelson doesn’t necessarily look like a mobster, but he does a fine dying scene.But for most of the picture, I’m just admiring Michael Mann’s first time out as a big time director. Besides the rain-slicked streets dazzling us with neon, his two set-piece heists are riveting. Drilling into a vault never looked so photogenic. Caan radiates a calm intense competence when he’s cracking a safe, which makes him subsequently giving into seething rage kind of hard to buy. His thief is so good at what he does because he’s so careful and focused and prepared. That is, the opposite of what goes down at the end.The second heist is a tour-de-force. The blazing thermal lance melting into the vault is beautiful, sparks flying and metal glowing. It’s these images that make “Thief” a memorable cult classic. Robbery never looked so good. Especially the p.o.v. shots from inside the safe. Lovely.Now if I were picking nits…. I’ve done a little welding over the years. Unless that vault room has industrial ventilation, smoke in this confined space would be so thick that Caan and crew wouldn’t be able to see each other, let alone the diamonds. You’re burning the steel lance pipe with pure oxygen. Besides which, Caan is vaporizing steel, concrete, copper, titanium and whatever else the elderly expert said. And the carpet. You’d definitely want breathing gear. I’d worry about the diamonds inside, too, unless they’re in insulated boxes. We’re talking 4,000 degrees plus here. Diamond burns at under a thousand, and the boxes in the safe are gonna ignite at much lower temperatures.If I were still picking nits, I’d notice that this building has no smoke detectors, despite the elaborate alarms. Or sprinklers. But wow, does this sequence look great!By now, everybody who’s going to watch “Thief” is already familiar with the ending, so I’m not spoiling when I say that it’s the clichéd way to get to the end of the plot. Suddenly, everybody shoots everybody else. It’s been done many times before and since. Caan steps it up a notch by also blowing up his house, his bar and his car dealership. Doesn’t make much sense; if he’s proving that he doesn’t care nothing about nothing no more, who’s he proving that to? I mean, he intends to shoot all the bad guys and probably get killed in the process. So, maybe his wife and kid could’ve profited more by having a non-blown-up house and bar and car dealership? I don’t think the insurance is going to pay off after a bombing.Nice explosions, though. It blowed up real good! Again, if I were a nit-picker, I’d wonder what sort of guy has his bar apparently pre-wired to self-destruct, since he’s in and out in a minute. And how about all the people who had jobs there? And the buildings next door? Kind of a dickish move, I’d say.I will also say that the jail-speak thing, in which hardened cons and ex-cons deliver meaningful speeches during which they speak using no contractions, I do not think that actual tough guys speak that way unless those tough guys should be taking their cues from “Guys and Dolls”. I am just saying. The Borg are big on the talking with no contractions. Gang guys? I must say that I doubt this is factual. But, there isn’t all that much Runyon talking, and most of the dialog is terse, professional thieves making plans, gangsters making threats. Other than Caan’s monologs with Tuesday Weld, there’s not much talking and a lot of long wordless takes. A movie to look at more than listen to.That said, the listening to benefits greatly from the soundtrack. Tangerine Dream and Michael Mann were totally in synch. It’d be hard to imagine “Thief” working with a conventional score. Tones waft and wane and propulsive synthesizers move the safe cracking from a mere heist into the realms of art. Visually and aurally outstanding. Lifts the picture from a routine dirty cops and existentialist robbers to another level. The gist is, it’s a pretty decent sound design. Check out “Manhunter” for a more evolved version of the audio/visual fusion. Shriekback, doesn’t get much better than that for mood music.Count me as a Michael Mann fan. “Thief” is way better as a movie than “Heat”, a picture both Pacino and De Niro do their best to wreck. “Thief” is up there with “Collateral” for stylishness. For sheer gorgeousness, few movies, this one included, can stand with “The Last of the Mohicans”, but for the first time out of the gate, “Thief” shows plenty of promise for good things to come. In my opinion (and it’s the right opinion) “Manhunter” is unjustly overlooked in comparison to the much more conventional “Red Dragon”. I’d watch “Manhunter” twice rather than plod along with Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins in “Silence”.“Manhunter” also has Brian Cox as an excellent, ferocious Hannibal Lecter; “Silence” and “Red Dragon” and the regrettable “Hannibal” have doughy, seventy-ish Anthony Hopkins. Remember that scene in “Hannibal” where Lecter has to pick up Julianne Moore and carry her across the pigs? Must have used a lot of wire work for that bit of business. Hopkins would have to talk his victims to death, because he sure isn’t going to overpower them. But I digress. I like movies that look better than mere real life ever could, and that’s Michael Mann’s forte.

James Caan one of the great, real actors of our times, not like today's pretty boy/man image actors. This is a film about people, no cgi, special effects, except that it looks amazing in 1080p full HD. Character driven, classic Michael Mann. Thanks Amazon for bringing the 80's classic back to life. De Niro, Pacino, Caan, a group of actors that can never be matched.

Brilliantly directed by Michael Mann, Thief features one of James Caan's finest performances as the titular protagonist who plies his trade in Chicago. After his fence is killed and the Mafia begin to breathe down his neck he realises he must use all his skill and wits to survive if he is to outwit them. Robert Prosky plays the menacing Mafia patriarch who forces Cann to work for him. Tuesday Weld, as his girl, captivates with a sincere, understated performance. The scene in the diner where he woos Weld has become a classic. The movie pulsates with a raw intensity and an air of menace hangs over it all like a pall. Mann was meticulous during his research for the film and talked to actual thieves to get the feel of authenticity during the heist scenes. The film is also remembered for the magnificent score by Tangerine Dream. The music was an intrinsic part of the film's success. Thief foreshadowed the urban thrillers of later years such as Collateral and Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive. See it!

James Caan is such a great film actor that he carries this rather slick, clinical-looking film on his own.Michael Mann’s early movie about a loner thief, his girlfriend {wonderful Tuesday Weld wasted in an underwritten role} an oily crime boss {Robert Prosky in a rich performance} and Willie Nelson {surprisingly effective in another sadly underwritten role} is confidently directed, well acted, but ultimately disappointing, with far too much time given to unexciting, dimly lit heist scenes, and a dreadful, overpowering soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, which is so irritating I nearly stopped watching.But Caan is terrific in one of the best parts he ever had, proving again what an underrated actor he’s always been. See it for his flawless and sometimes moving performance. His scene with Tuesday Weld in the diner shows them both at their best.Frustratingly, almost a very good film.

Thief is written and directed by Michael Mann, who adapts the screenplay form the novel "The Home Invaders" written by Frank Hohimer. It stars James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, James Belushi and Willie Nelson. Music is by Tangerine Dream and cinematography by Donald Thorin.Frank (Caan) is a tough ex-con and expert jewel thief. He's working his way out to a normal life, but after being lured to a big job for the mob, he finds plans on both sides severely altered.For his first full length theatrical feature, Michael Mann announced himself to the film world with some distinction, and in the process showed everyone what style of film making makes him tick. Thief is a film of stylised grit, visually, thematically and narratively. Set and filmed in Chicago, Mann, aided by Thorin, shoots the story through pure neo-noir filters.At nighttime it is all a beautifully neon drenched haze, where the streets shimmer with dampness, a dampness brought about by the rain and god knows what else! By day there's a sweaty hue, a feeling that the heat is well and truly on, that even in daylight Frank isn't safe, his dreams may be a touch too far to reach. And no matter what the scene or scenario, Tangerine Dream are laying over the top a throbbing pulse beat, it's like The Warriors trying to get back to Coney Island, the music has a sense of dread about it, that danger is at every corner.This part of Chicago stinks, it's a vile and corrupt place. Dirty cops everywhere, underworld criminals ruling the roost - Hell! You can even buy a baby if you want one. Is it any wonder that Frank just wants to settle down with a wife and child, to walk barefooted in the sea, to have domesticity? But Frank, as smart, tough and savvy as he is, seems to thrive on the edge of things, with Mann giving him earthy and honest dialogue to engage us with, marking him out as an identifiable everyman protagonist who just happens to be an exceptional thief.Mann's attention to detail is on show straight away, none more so than with the two key safe cracking jobs that are undertaken. Using genuine jewel thieves as technical advisers on the film, these sequences ooze realism, from the tools used, the pre-planning and the execution of the takes, it smacks of reality and does justice to the genuine feel of the characterisations brought alive by the superb cast. And finally Mann delivers a finale of ambiguity, a noir shaded piece of abruptness, an ending that perfectly fits the whole production. 9/10

What a combination. James Caan one of the greatest tough guys actors of the 70's "badabing and you blow his brains all over your nice Ivy League suit" (great advice Sonny). And Michael Mann, a director equally comfortable with method actors and full thorttle action. If you like heist movies, this is a great example. A 1980's version of noir/hard boiled - LA Confidential with a Tangerine Dream soundtrack! The perfect antidote if you feel the need to break out of the corporate PC world, feet up, pop corn and watch the expletives, fists and bullets fly. Marvellous BTG

If you’re a fan of the movie HEAT then this is a must have. Why? Because there are many similarities between this movie and Heat. Dare I say it could easily be a prequel to that masterpiece. It’s got everything any fan of Michael Mann would love. Glad I got this hidden gem.