Before Their Time: Thief

By Daniel MacDonald

March 4, 2009

I plan to star in a show called Las Vegas in about 25 years.

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Welcome to the first installment of Before Their Time, a column dedicated to featuring groundbreaking, influential, or otherwise well regarded films that were overlooked either critically or by audiences on their initial release. In some cases, it will be hard to believe that these movies were ever unappreciated, while others you may never have seen or heard mention of before. For the maiden voyage, I've chosen to look at a personal favorite that helped steer its genre, despite not being particularly well known: Michael Mann's first feature film, Thief from 1981.

A perennial favorite of moviegoers and critics alike, the crime film can examine the conflicted psyche of those who make their living on the wrong side of the law, while thrilling audiences with daring schemes executed by thieves and other dregs of society. We can live the life forbidden to us through this genre. While early crime films were built as morality tales, their more modern manifestation blurs the line between right and wrong, washing the cinematic landscape in grey. The cops and criminals alike are flawed individuals with histories, relationships, and a desire to navigate through life as best they can. One of the films that helped define the crime film as we now know it, and indeed still stands as one the best examples of truly great genre filmmaking, is Thief.

Thief offered a new way to look at criminals and the crimes they commit, presented with an unwavering commitment to realism, an art student's eye for composition, and an earned empathy for the characters involved. While it grossed only $11.5 million at the box office, and is often overlooked in discussions of the crime genre, Thief is to crime movies what The French Connection is to cop films. James Caan plays Frank, a jewel thief who, having wasted many of his early years in prison, has an innate sense of the value of time. Frank carries with him a collage of photographs representing what he wants out of life: a family, a big house, a nice car, and his best friend/mentor Okla, played by Willie Nelson. Despite not being well educated, Frank is methodical, obsessive, organized, and hyper-focused, traits that crop up in Heat (another Mann picture), Payback, Heist, American Gangster, and The Usual Suspects, to name a few. A life of crime is presented as being very much a difficult blue collar profession, appealing to those who have left themselves few choices in life, but also as a lifestyle in which only the consummate professional can be successful. A major factor in the appeal of Thief is how fascinating it can be watching people who are very, very good at what they do execute a job with surgical precision, and to see how quickly the world can come crashing down on them when they deviate from their plan.

In creating Thief, Michael Mann - as he always does - set out to reproduce the characters' world with as much authenticity as possible. Caan trained with professional thieves (some of whom appear in the film as crooked police officers, as does a real-life cop, Dennis Farina, in his first film role) to learn safecracking techniques and various aspects of tradecraft, so that when the cameras rolled, Caan used his newfound skill set to actually break into a real, locked safe. You couldn't get any more real than the footage being captured. Mann's research helped him build complete backgrounds for each character, material that you would only see behind the actors' eyes as they deliver Mann's tight, carefully chosen words.





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Yet, Thief is stylistically miles away from Mann's documentary roots: camera angles are dramatic, powerfully composed, and unusual. A few times, we're privy to what's going on inside the safes as they're being cracked, a feat more difficult in 1981 than it would be with today's computer graphic technology. The music, by progressive-rock group Tangerine Dream, is driving, dramatic, and evocative of the dangerous world we're moving through, adding a sense of surrealistic cool. Mann makes innovative entertainment that reaches an emotional truth using a mastery of film technique, and what started with Thief carried on into the influential television series Miami Vice, and any number of movies involving cops and robbers.

Thief was also an early artistic success for superstar producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who had just a handful of films under his belt when he took on the project. It's a surprising piece to appear on blockbuster king Bruckheimer's CV, as he tends to be associated with slick, music video-influenced entertainment that some describe as "soulless." Closer inspection, though, finds the film shares - and perhaps guided - a few traits common amongst many of his productions, including setting the drama in a believable, and to an extent, an authentic world: see Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide, and the CSI TV show.

The box office chart in 1981 was dominated by comedies (Arthur, Stripes, Cannonball Run) action films (Superman II, Clash of the Titans), a couple of dramas (On Golden Pond, Reds), and of course Raiders of the Lost Ark. Thief may have cracked the top 100 domestic titles, but not by much. Yet, Thief solidified a cinematic vocabulary for the crime genre, and its influence - direct or indirect - continues to resonate today. Look at the opening bank heist in The Dark Knight, or the way Pulp Fiction's diner conversation between Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer is filmed, and you'll see tone and technique that echo this excellent picture.


     


 
 

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