Author’s Note: Michael Mann’s first feature film, Thief, is on-sale for dirt-cheap on Prime Video at the moment. So, I thought I’d re-post a short essay I wrote about it on my old blog some years ago. Enjoy!
When my son and I went to New York City over the summer, we stayed in Queens, just a few blocks from the Museum of the Moving Image. We spent most of our time in Manhattan, doing the tourist thing, and I never got around to the seeing the Museum. I regret this, and not only because it’s supposed to be a really cool place.
As fate would have it, I later found out that the film being screened at the Museum that week was Michael Mann’s first feature, Thief. It’s a fabulously entertaining crime thriller starring James Caan (a Bronx native) in one of the best performances of his long career. Caan plays Frank (we never learn his last name), a Chicago businessman by day and a high-end burglar by night. Like many heroes in Mann’s films, Frank is guy with a score to settle; he spent much of his youth in jail on trumped-up charges, and now stealing is his way of making for lost time.
Continue reading “Perfect Films: “Thief””
Ash Clifton, Writer 