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- (Jimmy Caan's Best Video Risk) I was wandering around in
a mega unnamed video store (not the evil necessity Blockbuster) with a good friend from out of
town when we started having this bizarre conversation with an employee about Tangerine Dream.
The result was a rent of the extremely well done and entertaining Michael Mann film "Thief."
The employee claimed to have over 26 Tangerine Dream albums. Let me know if that band actually
put out that many albums. As for "Thief," it could be billed as Robert Prosky's best video risk
as well in which he gives us one of the coolest old mob bosses ever to grace the screen--I think
this is a fair statement with no embellishment; let me know if you agree (drink coffee and talk
amongst yerself's).
THE STORY - Mr. Caan plays a master thief named Frank. Frank and his three man team,
one of whom is played well by a thinner and younger James Belushi, can crack any safe, penetrate
any security system, and only steal cash and "ice" (diamonds to the rest of us). He was educated
in the "can" where his best friend lifer Okla (Willie Nelson) still resides. After pulling a big job,
Frank's fence is killed and his money is stolen by a mobster named Leo (Robert Prosky). Leo enlists
Frank and his team to pull a giant job. Frank wants to pull one last job; Leo wants Frank on the
payroll for future jobs. Frank falls in love with Jessie (a hot Tuesday Weld) and even procures a
baby through Leo's connections. Can Frank pull free of Leo and live a simple normal life? Not if
Leo has anything to say about it.
Tuesday Weld is good in a role that Sharon Stone could reprise today.
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THE REVIEW - Michael Mann has a great sense of visual style which is on full display here.
Without falling into the flashy image factory that would become "Manhunter," Mann tells a solid story
with competent action sequences accented beautifully by intelligent burglary footage. One reviewer on
IMDB said that British authorities wanted to ban the burglary scenes because of their accuracy!
The highlight of the movie for me was veteran actor Robert Prosky (from "Dead Man Walking" and
countless other films). Prosky plays Leo, the calculating, all-powerful crime boss who can make
you rich or kill you. He is really evil, unlike his typical fatherly or grandfatherly image.
Watch for the scene in which he spits out bile and makes threats that everyone knows he can keep.
Leo offers Frank's wife gainful employment.
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Many may say that Frank is James Caan's finest role. Well, I beg to differ. Did anybody
catch him in "Alien Nation" (yuk, yuk)? Seriously, Caan is excellent as Frank. He occupies
much scene time and is required to emote--he is in every scene guys, and sometimes in other
films that is a bad thing. I especially like the scene in which he sits back and takes a chair to
Caan has never been better as Frank.
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watch the other members of his team clean out a safe. He reclines with a cigarette as though he had
just had an eventful roll in the hay.
Another of the successes of "Thief" is the careful focus on the burglaries.
The main heist in so expertly planned and wonderfully filmed that it alone was
enough to make the film interesting. Unlike many other lesser films, the science of
the crime and the techniques employed educated the audience--it could have been shown on NOVA.
Jim Belushi before he gained all that weight!
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Caan, thus, having more to talk about than women and violence, melds well with the science making
his character more interesting.
Really cool safe cutting, forget about cracking the damn thing just cut yourself a door and walk right in.
"Thief" works, at almost 20 years of age it has not lost its edge. Rent it and enjoy.
Jonathan Hickman
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