384 - Thief, United States, 1981. Dir. Michael Mann.

Friday, January 18, 2018

384 - Thief, United States, 1981.  Dir. Michael Mann.

Frank keeps a collage on a postcard in his pocket at all times.  He made the collage in prison by cutting out pictures from magazines and pasting them onto the postcard.  Everything on that postcard represents the life he wanted when he got out.  He was in from age 20 to age 31.

Now he is out.

Frank owns a bar and a car dealership, and he does well.  He wears expensive clothes, drives whatever new car he wants--usually a Cadillac--and eats at great restaurants.  He takes his postcard out of his pocket and checks it.  How is he doing?  How many items does he have?  How many does he still need to acquire?

You may call this a Vision Board.  To him it is a life line.  It gave him a reason to live.

Frank likes this girl who works at one of the restaurants.  Her name is Jessie.  He wants to marry her but does not know if he should tell her about his past.  And what he really does for a living now.  His friend and guide Okla, who is in prison for life, tells him to tell her the truth.  Always tell the truth.  If she accepts, then you have a life companion.  If not, then she is not for you.

Frank tells Jessie the truth.

He is a thief.  The bar and the car dealership, as successful as they are, are fronts for his night life, which is to heist uncut diamonds from bank vaults.  And he is very good at it.

The film begins with one of his heists.  Then it sets up for the big one.  The last one.  The one that is going to set him up with her for life.  He has always worked freelance.  But one of his clients was murdered when coming to bring him his money.  By being dropped off a building.  Job hazard.

So when he goes to collect he meets his fence.  The powerful man behind it all.  A kind of godfather.  Who wants to take care of him.  A man with horsehead bookends on his mantle.

Frank is played by James Caan, after all.  So of course his godfather fence would have horsehead bookends on his mantle.

And have similar feelings as another godfather James Caan once knew in another life.

But this is not Sonny Corleone.  This is Frank.  And that is not Don Vito.  It is Leo.  Played by Robert Prosky.  The man with the ubiquitous face from so many films.  Like Christine (1983).  The Natural (1984).  Broadcast News (1987).  Green Card (1990).  Hoffa (1992).  Rudy (1993).  Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (of course).  The latest incarnation of Mircale on 34th Street (1994). The Sarlet Letter (1995).  Dead Man Walking (1995).

Robert Prosky was 51 when he appeared in this, his first speaking role in a film.

There is still time for you.

Michael Mann knows how to make a heist film.  One day Criterion will have his masterpiece Heat (1995) in their collection.  The one that brought Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together.  And probably the Hannibal Lector movie that some fans like the best, Manhunter (1986).  But meanwhile, check out this film, which was his first too, as a director.  He crafts with the precision of an engineer.  He plots with the tension of a crime novelist.  He films with the luster of a starry night.  We are in Chicago.  And we drive under the L.  You might think of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971).  Or The Blues Brothers (1980).  But this one is quite different.

Frank is a rat in a maze.  And the streets of Chicago are enclosed.  The night is the roof on the maze.  And the lights shine down on the streets and on the hood of his car.

James Caan can carry a movie.  His Frank is smart and clearheaded and decisive and strong.

Will he make it out?  Some police want to get him.  Some want to get their share.  Some thieves want to cross him.  Some think he has crossed them.  Leo, of course, wants to own him.

The smartest one wins.

Who is the smartest?