With Thief, his first feature film, writer-director Michael Mann transferred the spiritualized stoicism of mid-century French crime films onto the Chicago streets of the early 1980s. It’s as if Le Samourai got mugged in an Uptown alley. James Caan stars as Frank, an ex-con who runs a car dealership by day and cracks safes at night. Just one or two more jobs with a connected crime boss (Robert Prosky) will secure his dream: a quiet suburban life with Jessie, a waitress he’s aggressively wooing, played by Tuesday Weld. Caan and Weld get a dynamite dinner scene together—angry and flirty, two damaged people sharing their stories and breaking down each other’s defenses. Weld is sidelined after that, but she gives so much in this scene that it provides an emotional anchor for the rest of the film. Caan has possibly never been better, all balled-up, potential energy that bursts out at the most inopportune moments. (Notice the way he seethingly, silently stares at a doctor who delivers bad news.) It’s only while working a safe that Frank seems serene: focused, controlled, at peace. This—alongside the neon streaks that Mann and cinematographer Donald E. Thorin accentuate against the concrete-and-iron landscape, plus the woozy Tangerine Dream score—lends Thief its metaphysical weight. Frank isn’t just a skilled crook who is in over his head; he’s the quintessential, tortured, traditionally masculine soul, trapped in a world that squashes sensitivity and only rewards those who take by force.
(7/22/2022)
