#3: Thief

Release Date: March 27th, 1981

Format: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray

Written by: Michael Mann

Directed by: Michael Mann

4 Stars

“Cool” is a ubiquitous word, but it really is the best way to describe Michael Mann’s crime films. They are cool. The protagonists are cool. The antagonists are cool. The dialogue is cool. The cinematography is cool. Setting, lighting, cars, you get the idea.  I imagine Heat is commonly thought of as his magnum opus, and probably his best movie, but Thief is cooler. 

There’s a Normal Mailer short story called, “The Language of Men,” about a young Army recruit who is unable to relate to other young men his age - he cannot speak their “language” - and is seen by guys in his platoon as strange and possibly queer because he doesn’t convincingly talk about girls or sports or fighting. 

The male characters in a Mann movie, and Thief especially, suffer no such problem. James Caan’s character, Frank, is the antithesis of Mailer’s protagonist. He heists diamonds and cash from vaults, he runs a bar and used car lot, he was in prison, he fights, he fucks, he’s a man’s man. 

I liked how Frank has a singular vision of how his life should be. He even makes a collage on a piece of paper that represents the things he wants out of life after prison: a nice house, a nice car, a pretty wife, a son. He carries the collage in his pocket as a reminder of what he’s working towards, and if he pursues a pretty woman who isn’t quite right and can’t bear children, oh well, he’ll talk her into a marriage and an adoption, because he is a man who knows what he wants.  It’s the type of singular vision that I think many ex-cons have when they get out to stay motivated to not reoffend. For Caan’s character it leads him to one last score, a common trope in dozens of heist movies, and of course his downfall. 

But it doesn’t feel cliched in Thief. It’s just so damn cool.