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THIEF, directed by Michael Mann screenstory and screenplay by Mr. ''Thief'' is far better than ''The Driver,'' but ultimately it, too, is undone by its pretentions. Not since Walter Hill's ''The Driver,'' a gangster melodrama so high-toned that the characters were identified not by names but by their occupations, has there been an action film so unfortunately convinced that ordinary movies can be elevated to cinema if the characters talk fancy enough and if the camera consistently turns the most commonplace objects into beautiful abstractions of reality. To describe this Chicago as a toddlin' town is to understate the case. It's also interesting to note that though the city of Chicago cooperated fully in the film's production, there's not one cop in the picture who isn't more vicious and corrupt than the self-acknowledged hoodlums. The music by Tangerine Dream sounds as if it wanted to have a life of its own, as if it were meant to be an album instead of a soundtrack score. Mann favors close-ups so tight you often don't know if you're seeing a blow-torch or the interior of Mount St. This neonlit, nighttime Chicago is pretty enough to be framed and hung on a wall, where, of course, good movies don't belong.
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The movie is loaded with so-called production values.
Willie Nelson, as cool, collected and grizzled as ever, turns up in a cameo role, as an old con who once taught Frank the existentialist philosophy needed to survive in prison.
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''Thief'' is full of such erector-set moments, when characters attempt to juice up their feelings (and ours) with similes that have nothing to do with them or with clean-cut movie making.Īn actor new to me, Robert Prosky, is exceptionally effective as the evil Leo, but it would be difficult to be bad with such a vivid character, a Middle Western version of the sort of affable international villains that Sidney Greenstreet once played. Later, when Frank attempts to save Jesse's life by abruptly kicking her out of their suburban split-level, Jesse is required to say of their marriage, ''You mean, we just disassemble it and put it back in the box, like an erector set?'' The sequence in which Frank courts Jesse in an all-night hamburger joint, forcing himself to be honest with her, begins as being both funny and moving, and then slops over into weepy sentimentality. Time after time scenes start off well and slip into unintentionally comic excess.
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Mann may well become a very good theatrical film maker but, among other things, he's going to have to learn how to edit himself, to resist the temptation to allow dialogue that is colorful to turn, all of a sudden, into deep, abiding purple. ''Thief'' is the first theatrical film to be written and directed by Michael Mann, who received an Emmy for his television movie ''The Jericho Mile.'' Mr. He avoids any continuing gang connections, that is, until he meets Jesse (Tuesday Weld), a tarnished but exceptionally chic cashier in a coffee shop, a young woman with a mysterious past that apparently includes having lived with a now-dead, big-time narcotics dealer. He enjoys the freedom of the open contract. He makes a good living acting as his own boss. Though Frank works with Barry (James Belushi), a faithful, Tontolike assistant, he is essentially a loner. Frank stays away from bulky loot like furs and from things that can be traced - bonds, treasury notes, coin collections and such.
The title character is a youngish, used-car dealer named Frank (James Caan), an ex-con who makes his real living as a thief specializing in safe-cracking and big hauls in cash or diamonds. ''THIEF,'' which opens today at the Cinerama and other theaters, takes place mostly in Chicago though the actual setting is in the twilight land halfway between gritty gangster melodrama and that world where writers meditate self-consciously on the sorrows of life.
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