A Jerry Bruckheimer production. A film by Michael Mann. Damn, does that sound pretty sweet. It’s interesting to note how very different these two creative forces would become over the years, but their 1981 collaboration cemented two very distinctive stylistic talents who would pave the way all throughout the decade for other filmmakers who would become obsessed by their explosive action elements and urban nocturnal elegance. James Caan delivered one of his greatest performances in this gritty yet slick neo-noir which Mann based on the 1975 novel The Home Invaders by Frank Hohimer, who in actuality was real-life criminal John Seybold. Tuesday Weld co-starred as Caan’s girlfriend, with an amazing supporting cast including Willie Nelson, James Belushi, Robert Prosky, Dennis Farina, and Tom Signorelli peppering the film with lively, extremely memorable moments. This was Mann’s auspicious feature film debut after time spent on docs and TV programs, displaying a sensationally strong grasp of filmmaking technique and intent, with some of his now-obsessive visual traits firmly in place from the start.
The scene in the coffee shop between Caan and Weld is an all-timer, one of the single best moments of acting in Caan’s career, and further serves to demonstrate just how forceful and commanding he was as a leading man, while being able to convey his own special brand of sympathy. And one gets the sense that, while totally acting as its own great piece of storytelling, Mann was warming up and setting the stage for bigger, more epic pieces of filmmaking, while establishing his love for hardened, morally ambiguous protagonists who straddle both sides of the law while displaying an intense concentration on their job by following a meticulous set of personal and professional codes. These have been the recurring themes in Mann’s work that has stretched from the near operatic (Heat) to the grounded docudrama (The Insider) to the quasi-experimental studio thriller (Collateral) to the expressive and impressionistic genre treatise (Miami Vice). William Peterson made his feature debut in a very small part. After debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, Thief would slip in and out of theaters mostly unnoticed, despite receiving strong reviews from critics. Tangerine Dream’s hypnotic score only amplifies Mann’s uncanny sense of atmosphere and mise-en-scene.
Podcasting Them Softly 